[1] Although he shares the identical name of several members of the Republican Porcii, Ronald Syme expressed reservations that he is related to that famed family.
At the beginning of the year 28, during the ascendancy of the powerful prefect of the Praetorian Guard, Sejanus, Titus Sabinus, an eques of the highest rank, was imprisoned due to his friendship with Germanicus.
"He had indeed persisted in showing marked respect towards Germanicus' wife and children," writes Tacitus, "as their visitor at home, their companion in public, the solitary survivor of so many clients."
Cato, along with three other ex-praetors -- Latinus Latiaris, Petitius Rufus, and Marcus Opsius -- managed to elicit treasonable comments from Sabinus, which they then passed on to Tiberius.
After noting how these informants mattered so little to Tiberius that "he frequently, when he was tired of them and fresh ones offered themselves for the same services, flung off the old", Tacitus promises to describe their fates at the appropriate section.