Cicero: Catiline's Audacity

 

    During the final decades of the Roman Republic, a band of indebted aristocrats, led by Lucius Sergius Catilina, or Catiline, forged a conspiracy against Rome and the Roman consul Cicero himself. Political ambition being his motive, Catiline began to raise an army of disaffected senators, Etruscans, and equestrians in hopes of corupting Rome. After Rome's downfall, Catiline planned to resurrect his city, gaining political and heroic status. Yet on October 18, 63 B.C., Roman general Crassus brought letter of warning to Cicero regarding this 'Catiline Conspiracy'. The following day, Cicero read these now scandalous letters to the senate, destroying both Catiline's reputation and conspiratorial plans. Cicero later wrote four rhetorical orations regarding Catiline's plots, one coming to be known as 'In Catilinam"

    Cicero begins 'In Catilinam' with six rhetorical questions, aimed directly at Catiline himself. With the patience of the senate growing thin, Cicero demands of Catiline the time when his plots, which are making a mockery of Rome itself, will cease. (Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? Quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? Quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia?)

    Cicero then asks Catiline whether or not he was unmoved by the guards of the Palatine (the central most hill of the 7 Hills of Rome, where political figures commonly live), or by the patrol men of Rome, or by the faces and expressions of the Roman people, or by senate meetings at the 'curia', while he was plotting against them all. (Nihilne te nocturnum praesidium Palati, nihil urbis vigiliae, nihil timor populi, nihil concursus bonorum omnium, nihil hic munitissimus habendi senatus locus, nihil horum ora voltusque moverunt?)

    Next, Cicero informs Catiline that his plots are indeed known to the men of the Senate, as well as his actions and meetings during the night before and the night before last. (Patere tua consilia non sentis, constrictam iam horum omnium scientia teneri coniurationem tuam non vides? Quid proxima, quid superiore nocte egeris, ubi fueris, quos convocaveris, quid consilii ceperis, quem nostrum ignorare arbitraris?)

    Cicero begins to show his frustration regarding the matter as he ridicules the actions of present politicians. While Catiline plots against Rome, he continues to partake in Roman life, and Cicero can't believe that Rome would allow someone of such threat to continue living. (O tempora, o mores! Senatus haec intellegit. Consul videt; hic tamen vivit. Vivit? immo vero etiam in senatum venit, fit publici consilii particeps, notat et designat oculis ad caedem unum quemque nostrum.)

    Then, Cicero, now fully frustrated, tells his fellow senators (fortes viri), that Catiline should have been executed a long time ago and that he himself plans to turn the tables on Catiline by conferring his conspiracy upon him. (Nos autem fortes viri satis facere rei publicae videmur, si istius furorem ac tela vitemus. Ad mortem te, Catilina, duci iussu consulis iam pridem oportebat, in te conferri pestem, quam tu in nos omnes iam diu machinaris.)

    Cicero next brings up past times of murder and death to prove to the Senate that Catiline, should in fact, be put to death. First, Cicero mentions the death of Tiberius Gracchus, a roman political who caused only minor turmoil with his reform on agrarian legislation, by the hands of the Roman high priest Publius Scipio. If such petty affairs used to be cause for death, Cicero questions why Rome allows Catiline, who plans to devastate the entire world, to live. (An vero vir amplissumus, P. Scipio, pontifex maximus, Ti. Gracchum mediocriter labefactantem statum rei publicae privatus interfecit; Catilinam orbem terrae caede atque incendiis vastare cupientem nos consules perferemus?)

    Cicero also mentions the death of Spurius Manlius, who strove for a rebellion, by the hands of Gaius Servilius Ahala, to further enforce that Catiline's situation is cause for the same punishment, death. (Nam illa nimis antiqua praetereo, quod C. Servilius Ahala Sp. Maelium novis rebus studentem manu sua occidit)

    Lastly, Cicero contrasts the Rome of today (fortes viri) with the Rome of yesterday (viri fortes), in that present politicians are weaker than their forefathers, who once would punish harmful citizens equally as harsh as their most bitter enemy. (Fuit, fuit ista quondam in hac re publica virtus, ut viri fortes acrioribus suppliciis civem perniciosum quam acerbissimum hostem coercerent.)