July 26, 2025 • 43 mins
Dive into the captivating life of Marcus Tullius Cicero, an influential orator, statesman, philosopher, and correspondent who emerged as a new man in the chaotic final years of Romes republican government. In this biography, acclaimed novelist Anthony Trollope delivers a passionate defense of Ciceros virtues against critics who question his political and personal strength. Trollopes personal approach offers a unique glimpse into his own thought process and era, as well as those of Cicero. Volume I explores Ciceros formative years, his ascension through the courts and state offices to the Consulship, and his subsequent exile. This version omits footnotes and appendices, which mostly consist of bibliographical citations, Latin quotations, and substantial extracts from other works, unless they are explicitly referred to in the main text. Catch up with Volume II after this.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter nine, Part two of the Life of Cicero, Volume one.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Philiper Jevons. The Life
of Cicero, Volume one by Anthony Trollop. Chapter nine, Catiline,
(00:23):
Part two, The second conspiracy was attempted in the consulship
of Cicero BC. Sixty three, two years after the first
Catiline had struggled for the consulship and had failed again.
There would be no province, no plunder, no power. This interference,
as it must have seemed to him, with his peculiar privileges,
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had all come from Cicero. Cicero was the busybody who
was attempting to stop the order of things which had,
to his thinking, been specially ordained by all the gods
for the sustenance of one so well born and at
the same time so poor as himself. There was a
vulgar meddling about it, all coming from the violent virtue
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of a consul whose father had been a nobody at Alpenum,
which was well calculated to drive Cataline into madness. So
he went to work and got together in Rome a
body of men as discontented and almost as nobly born
as himself, and in the country north of Rome an
army of rebels, and began his operations with very little secrecy.
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In all the story, the most remarkable feature is the
openness with which many of the details of the conspiracy
were carried on. The existence of the rebel army was known.
It was known that Catiline was the leader, The causes
of his disaffection were known, His comrades in guilt were known.
When any special act was intended, such as might be
the murder of the consul or the firing of the city,
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secret plots were concocted in abundance, but the grand fact
of a wide spread conspiracy could go naked in Rome,
and not even as Cicero dare to meddle with it.
Side note b c. Sixty three it at forty four.
As to this second conspiracy, the conspiracy with which Sallust
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and Cicero have made us so well acquainted, there is
no sufficient ground for asserting that Caesar was concerned in it,
that he was greatly concerned in the treatment of the conspirators.
There is no doubt he had probably learned to appreciate
the rage, the madness, the impotence of cataline at their
proper worth. He, too, I think, must have looked upon
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Cicero as a meddling over virtuous, busybody, as did even
Pompey when he returned from the East. What practical use
could there be in such a man at such a time,
in one who really believed in honesty, who thought of
liberty in the republic, and imagined that he could set
the world right by talking. Such must have been the
feeling of Caesar, who had both experience and foresight to
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tell him that Rome wanted and must have a master.
He probably had patriotism enough to feel that he, if
he could acquire the mastership, would do something beyond robbery.
Would not satisfy himself with cutting the throats of all
his enemies and feeding his supporters with the property of
his opponents. But Cicero was impracticable, unless, indeed, he could
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be so flattered as to be made useful. It was thus,
I think, that Caesar regarded Cicero, and thus that he
induced Pompey to regard him. But now in the year
of his consulship, Cicero had really talked himself into power,
and for this year his virtue must be allowed to
have its full way. He did so much in this year,
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was so really efficacious in restraining for a time the
greed and violence of the aristocracy, that it is not
surprising that he was taught to believe in himself. There
were too enough of others anxious for the Republic to
bolster him up in his own belief. There was that Cornelius,
in whose defense Cicero made the two great speeches, which
have been unfortunately lost. And there was Cato, and up
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to this time there was Pompey, as Cicero thought. Cicero,
till he found himself candidate for the consulship, had contented
himself with undertaking separate cases in which, no doubt politics
were concerned, but which were not exclusively political. He had
advocated the employment of Pompey in the East, and had
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defended Cornelius. He was well acquainted with the history of
the Republic, but he had probably never asked himself the
question whether it was in mortal peril, and if so,
whether it might possibly be saved. In his consulship he
did do so, and, seeing less of the republic than
we can see now, told himself that it was possible.
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The stories told to us of Catalan's conspiracy by Sallust
and by Cicero are so little conflicting that we can
trust them both. Trust them both, we are justified in
believing that we know the truth. We are here concerned
only with the part which Cicero took. Nothing, I think,
which Cicero says is contradicted by Sallust, Though of much
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of that Cicero certainly did. Sallust is silent. Sallust damns him,
but only by faint praise. We may therefore take the
account of the plot as given by Cicero himself as verified. Indeed,
I am not aware that any of Cicero's facts have
been questioned. Sallust declares that Cataline's attempt was popular in Rome. Generally, this,
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I think must be taken as showing simply that revolution
and conspiracy were in themselves popular. That as a condition
of things around him, such as existed in Rome, a
plotter of state plots should be able to collect a
body of followers was a thing, of course, that there
were many citizens who would not work, and who expected
to live in luxury on public or private plunder is certain.
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When the conspiracy was first announced in the Senate, Catiline
had an army collected, but we have no proof that
the hearts of the inhabitants of Rome generally were with
the conspirators. On the other hand, we have proof in
the unparalleled devotion shown by the citizens to Cicero after
the conspiracy was quelled, that their hearts were with him.
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The populace, fond of change, liked a disturbance, but there
is nothing to show that Catiline was ever beloved, as
had been the Grachai and other tribunes of the people
who came after them. Catiline, in the autumn of the
year b c. Sixty three, had arranged the outside circumstances
of his conspiracy, knowing that he would for the third
time be unsuccessful in his canvas for the consulship. That
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Cicero with other senators should be murdered seems to have
been their first object, and that then the consulship should
be seized by force. On the twenty first October, Cicero
made his first report to the Senate as to the
conspiracy and call upon Cataline for his answer. It was
then that Cataline made his famous reply that the republic
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had two bodies, of which one was weak and had
a bad head, meaning the aristocracy with Cicero as its chief,
and the other strong, but without any head, meaning the people.
But that as for himself, so well had the people
deserved of him, that as long as he lived, a
head should be forthcoming. Then at that sitting, the Senate decreed,
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in the usual formula, that the consuls were to take
care that the republic did not suffer. On the twenty
second of October, the new consuls Silanus and Morena were elected.
On the twenty third, Catiline was regularly accused of conspiracy
by pawless Lepidus, a young nobleman. In conformity with the
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law which had been enacted fifty five years earlier, deu
publica as to violence applied to the state. Two days afterward,
it was officially reported that Manlius or Malius, as he
seems to have been generally called, Cataline's lieutenant, had openly
taken up arms in Atruria. The twenty seventh had been
fixed by the conspirators for the murder of Cicero and
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the other senators that all this was to be and
was so arranged by Catiline, had been declared in the
Senate by Cicero himself on that day when Cataline told
them of the two bodies and the two heads. Cicero,
with his intelligence, ingenuity, and industry, had learned every detail.
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There was one curious among the conspirators, a fair specimen
of the young Roman nobleman of the day, who told
it all to his mistress Foolia, and she carried the
information to the consul. It is all narrated with fair
dramatic accuracy in ben Jonson's Dull Play, though he has
attributed to Caesar a share in the plot for doing
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which he had no authority. Cicero, on that sitting in
the Senate, had been specially anxious to make Catiline understand
that he knew privately every circumstance of the plot. Throughout
the whole conspiracy. His object was not to take Catiline,
but to drive him out of Rome. If the people
could be stirred up to kill him in their wrath,
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that might be well. In that way there might be
an end of all the trouble. But if that did
not come to pass, then it would be best to
make the city unbearable to the conspirators. If they could
be driven out, they must either take themselves to foreign
parts and be dispersed, or must else fight and assuredly
be conquered. Cicero himself was never blood thirsty, but the
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necessity was strong upon him of ridding the republic from
these bloodthirsty men. The scheme for destroying Cicero and the
senators on the twenty seventh of October had proved abortive.
On the sixth of the next month, a meeting was
held in the house of one Marcus Porcius Lyka, at
which a plot was arranged for the case killing of
(10:00):
Cicero the next day. For the killing of Cicero alone,
he having been by this time found to be the
one a great obstacle in their path, two knights were
told off for the service, named Vargunteus and Cornelius. These,
after the Roman fashion, were to make their way early
on the following morning into the Consul's bedroom for the
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ostensible purpose of paying him their morning compliments, But when
there they were to slay him. All this, however, was
told to Cicero, and the two knights when they came,
were refused admittance. If Cicero had been a man given
to fear, as has been said of him, he must
have passed a wretched life at this period. As far
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as I can judge of his words and doings throughout
his life, he was not harassed by constitutional timidity. He
feared to disgrace his name, to lower his authority, to
become small in the eyes of men, to make political mistakes,
to do that which might turn against him. In much
which of this there was a falling off from that
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dignity which, if we do not often find it in
a man, we can all of us imagine. But of
personal dread as to his own skin, as to his
own life, there was very little at this time, when,
as he knew well, many men with many weapons in
their hands, men who were altogether unscrupulous, were in search
for his blood. He never seems to have trembled, but
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all Rome trembled, even according to Sallust. I have already
shown how he declares in one part of his narrative
that the common people as a body were with cataline,
and have attempted to explain what was meant by that
expression in another, in an earlier chapter. He says that
the state, meaning the city, was disturbed by all this,
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and its appearance changed. Instead of the joy and ease
which had lately prevailed the effect of the long peace,
a sudden sadness fell upon everyone the passage. Because that
other passage has been taken as proving the popularity of Cataline,
there can, I think, be no doubt that the population
of Rome was as a body afraid of Cataline. The
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city was to be burnt down, The consuls and the
Senate were to be murdered, debts were to be wiped out.
Slaves were probably to be encouraged against their masters. The
permotaquitas and the kunq d'a plebs of which Sallust speaks
mean that all the householders were disturbed, and that all
the roths were eager with revolutionary hopes. On the eighth
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of November, the day after that on which the consul
was to have been murdered in his own house, he
called a special meeting of the Senate in the Temple
of Jupiter Startle. The Senate in Cicero's time was convened
according to expedients, or perhaps as to the dignity of
the occasion in various temples. Of these, none had a
higher reputation than that of the Special Jupiter, who was
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held to have befriended Rommels in his fight with the Sabines.
Here was launched that thunderbolt of eloquence which all English
schoolboys have known for its coup squetandem abutere catilina patientia nostra.
Whether it be from the ore which has come down
to me from my earliest years, mixed perhaps with something
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of dread for the great pedagogue who first made the
words to sound grandy in my ears, or whether true
critical judgment has since approved to me the real weight
of the words they certainly do contain for my intelligence
and expression of almost divine indignation. Then there follows a
string of questions, which to translate would be vain. Which
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to quote, for those who read the language is surely unnecessary.
It is said to have been a fault with Cicero,
that in his speeches he runs too much into that
vein of wrathful interrogation, which undoubtedly palls upon us in
English oratory when frequent resort is made to it. It
seems to be too easy and contained too little of argument.
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It was this probably of which his contemporaries complained when
they declared him to be florid, redundant, and asiatic in
his style. This questioning runs through nearly the whole speech,
but the reader cannot fail to acknowledge its efficacy in
reference to the matter in hand. Cataline was sitting there
himself in the Senate, and the questions were for the
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most part addressed to him. We can see him now,
a man of large frame, with bold glaring eyes, looking
in his wrath, as though he were hardly able to
keep his hands from the consul's throat, even there in
the Senate. Though he knew that this attack was to
be made on him, he had stalked into the temple
and seated himself in a place of honor among the
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benches intended for those who had been consuls. When there
no one spoke to him, no one saluted him. The
consular senators shrunk away, leaving their places of privilege. Even
his brother conspirators, of whom many were present, did not
dare to recognize him. Lentilus was no doubt there, and
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Cethegus and two of the Sullen family, and Cassius Longinus
and Autronius, and Lyca and Curius. All of them were
or had been conspirators in the same cause. Caesar was
there too, and Crassus, a fellow conspirator with Catiline, would
probably be a senator. Cicero knew them all. We cannot
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say that in this matter Caesar was guilty. But Cicero
no doubt felt that Caesar's heart was with Catiline. It
was his present task, so to thunder with his eloquence,
that he should turn these bitter enemies into seeming friends,
to drive Cataline from out of the midst of them,
so that it should seem that he had been expelled
by those who were, in truth his brother conspirators. And
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this it was that he did. He declared the nature
of the plot, and boldly said that such being the facts,
Cataline deserved death. If he says, I should order you
to be taken and killed, believe me, I should be
blamed rather for my delay in doing so than for
my cruelty. He spoke throughout as though all the power
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were in his own hands, either to strike or to forbear.
But it was his object to drive him out and
not to kill him. Go. He said that camp of
yours and Mallius, your lieutenant, are too long without you.
Take of friends with you, take them all. Cleanse the
city of your presence. When its walls are between you
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and me. Then I shall feel myself secure among us.
Here you may no longer stir yourself. I will not
have it. I will not endure it. If I were
to suffer you to be killed, your followers in the
conspiracy would remain here. But if you go out as
I desire you, de cesspool of filth will drain itself
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off from our the city. Do you hesitate to do
at my command that which you would fain do yourself?
The consul requires an enemy to depart from the city.
Do you ask me whether you are to go into exile?
I do not order it, but if you ask my counsel,
I advise it. Exile was the severest punishment known by
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the Roman law as applicable to a citizen, and such
a punishment it was in the power of no consul
or other officer of state to inflict. Though he had
taken upon himself the duty of protecting the republic, still
he could not condemn a citizen. It was to the
moral effect of his words that he must trust non Jubo,
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said Sime consulis Souardeo. Cataline heard him to the end,
and then, muttering a curse, left the senate and went
out of the city. Sallust tells us that he threatened
to extinguish in the mess wist of the general ruin
he would create the flames prepared for his own destruction. Sallust, however,
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was not present on the occasion, and the threat probably
had been uttered at an earlier period of Cataline's career.
Cicero tells us expressly in one of his subsequent works
that Catiline was struck dumb of this first Catiline oration.
Sallust says that Marcus Tullius, the Consul, either fearing the
presence of the man, or stirred to anger, made a
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brilliant speech very useful to the republic. This coming from
an enemy, is stronger testimony to the truth of the
story told by Cicero than would have been any vehement
praise from the pen of a friend. Catiline met some
of his colleagues the same night. They were the very
man who, as senators, had been present at his confusion,
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and to them he declared his purpose of going. There
was nothing to be done in the city by him.
The consul was not to be reached. Catiline himself was
too closely what for personal action. He would join the
army at Phisilea, and then return and burn the city.
His friends, Lentilus, Ketgus and the others were to remain
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and be ready for fire and slaughter. As soon as Cataline,
with his army should appear before the walls. He went,
and Cicero had been so far successful. But these men, Lentilus,
Ketagus and the other senators, though they had not dared
to sit near Cataline in the Senate or to speak
a word to him, went about their work zealously. When
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evening had come, a report was spread among the people
that the consul had taken upon himself to drive a
citizen into exile. Cataline, the ill used Catiline. Catiline, the
friend of the people, had, they said, gone to Marseilles,
in order that he might escape the fury of the
tyrant consul. In this we see the jealousy of Romans
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as to the infliction of any punishment by an individual
officer on a citizen. It was with a full night
knowledge of what was likely to come that Cicero had
ironically declared that he only advised the conspirator to go.
The feeling was so strong that on the next morning
he found himself compelled to address the people on the subject.
Then was uttered the second Catalan oration, which was spoken
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in the open air to the citizens at large. Here, too,
there are words among those with which he began his speech,
almost as familiar to us as the quosquetandem abeit excess it? Eh?
Was it errupit? This Cataline, says Cicero, this pest of
his country, raging in his madness. I have turned out
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of the city. If you like it better, I have
expelled him by my very words. He has departed, he
has fled, he has gone out from among us, he
has broken away. I have made this conspiracy plain to
you all as I said I would. Unless, indeed, there
may be some one here who does not believe that
the friends of Cataline will do the same as Cataline
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would have done. But there is no time now for
soft measures. We have to be strong handed. There is
one thing I will do for these men. Let them
too go out, so that Cataline shall not pine for them.
I will show them the road he has gone by
the weir Aurelia. If they will hurry, they may catch
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him before night. He implies by this that the story
about Marseilles was false. Then he speaks with irony of
himself as that violent consul who could drive citizens into
exile by the very breath of his mouth. Ego ware
heemenzi le consurl quierbo qiwes in exiliu meikio. So he
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goes on in truth, defending himself, but leading them with
him to take part in the accusation which he intends
to bring against the chief conspirators who remain in the city.
If they too will go, they may go unscathed. If
they choose to remain, let them look to themselves. Through
it all, we can see that there is but one
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thing that he fears, that he shall be driven, by
the exigencies of the occasion, to take some steps which
shall afterwards be judged not to have been strictly legal,
and which shall put him into the power of his enemies,
when the day of his ascendancy shall have passed away.
It crops out repeatedly in these speeches he seems to
be aware that some over strong measure will be forced
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upon him, for which he alone will be held responsible.
If he can only avoid that, he will fear nothing else.
If he cannot avoid it, he will encounter even that danger.
His foresight was wonderfully accurate. The strong hand was used,
and the punishment came upon him not from his enemies,
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but from his friends, almost to the bursting of his heart.
Though the Senate had decreed that the consuls were to
see that the Republic should take no harm, and though
it was presumed that extraordinary power was thereby conferred, it
is evident that no power was conferred of inflicting punishment Antony,
as Cicero's colleague was nothing. The authority, the responsibility, the
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action were and were intended to remain with Cicero. He
could not legally banish anyone. It was only too evident
that they must be much slaughter. There was the army
of rebels with which it would be necessary to fight.
Let them go, these rebels within the city, and either
join the army and get themselves killed, or else disappear
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whither they would among the provinces. The object of this
second catalin oration spoken to the people, was to convince
the remaining conspirators that they had better go, and to
teach the citizens generally that in giving such council he
was banishing no one as far as the citizens were concerned.
He was successful, but he did not induce the friends
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of Catalan to follow their chief. This took place on
the ninth of November. After the oration, the Senate met
again and declared Catiline and Malleus to be public enemies.
Twenty four days elapsed before the third speech was spoken,
twenty four days during which Rome must have been in
a state of very great fever. Cicero was actively engaged
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in unraveling the plots, the details of which were still
being carried on within the city. But nevertheless he made
that speech for Morainer before the judicial bench, of which
I gave an account in the last chapter, and also
probably another for Piso, of which we have nothing left.
We cannot but marvel that he should have been able
at such a time to devote his mind to such
subjects and carefully to study all the details of legal cases.
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It was only on October the twenty first that Morena
had been elected consul, and yet on the twentieth of
November Cicero defended him with great skill on a charge
of bribery. There is an ease, a playfulness, a softness,
a drollery about this speech, which appears to be almost
incompatible with the stern, absorbing realities and great personal dangers
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in the midst of which he was placed. But the
agility of his mind was such that there appears to
have been no difficulty to him in these rapid changes.
On the same day, the twentieth of November, when Cicero
was defending Marina, the plot was being carried on at
the house of a certain Roman lady named Sempronia. It
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was she of whom sallust had said that she danced
better than became an honest woman. If we can believe Salluste,
she was steeped in luxury and vice. At her house,
a most vile project was hatched for introducing into Rome,
Rome's bitterest foreign foes. There were in the city at
this time certain delegates from a people called the Alabroges,
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who inhabited the lower part of Savoy. The Alabroges were
of Gaulish race. There were warlike angry, and at the
present moment peculiarly discontented with Rome. There had been certain injuries,
either real or presumed, respecting which these delegates had been
sent to the city. There they had been delayed and
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fobbed off with official replies which gave no satisfaction, and
were supposed to be ready to do any evil possible
to the republic. What if they could be got to
go back suddenly to their homes and bring a legion
of red haired ghauls to assist the conspirators in burning
down Rome. A deputation from the delegates came to Sempronia's house,
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and there met the conspirators, Lentilus and others. They entered
freely into the project. But having, as was usual with
foreign embassies at Rome, a patron or peculiar friend of
their own among the aristocracy won Fabius Sanga by name,
they thought it well to consult him. Sanga, as a
matter of course, told everything to our astute consul. Then
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the matter was arranged with more than all the craft
of a modern in stea of police. The allobroges were
instructed to lend themselves to the device, stipulating, however, that
they should have a written signed authority which they could
show to their rulers at home. The written signed documents
were given to them with certain conspirators to help them
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out of the city. They were sent on their way.
At a bridge over the Tiber, they were stopped by
Cicero's emissaries. There was a feigned fight, but no blood
was shed, and the ambassadors, with their letters, were brought
home to the consul. We were astonished at the marvelous
folly of these conspirators, so that we could hardly have
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believed the story had it not been told alike by
Cicero and by Sallust, and had not allusion to the
details been common among later writers. The ambassadors were taken
at the Milvian Bridge early on the morning of the
third of December, and in the course of that day
Cicero sent for the leaders of the conspiracy to come
to him. Lentilus, who was then prital, Kethigus, Gabinius, and
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Statilius all obeyed the summons. They did not know what
had occurred, and probably felt that their best hope of
safety lay in compliance. Kyparius was also sent for, but he,
for the moment escaped in vain, for before two days
were over he had been taken and put to death
with the others. Cicero again called the Senate together and
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entered the meeting, leading the guilty pritor by the hand.
Here the offenders were examined and practically acknowledged their guilt.
The proofs against them were so convincing that they could
not deny it. There were the signatures of some arms
were found hidden in the house of another. The Senate
decreed that the men should be kept endurance till some
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decision as to their fate should have been pronounced. Each
of them was then given in custody to some noble
Roman of the day Lentilus. The prital was confided to
the keeping of a Censil Cathagus, to Cornificius, Statilius, to Caesar, Gabinius,
to Crassus, and Cayparius, who had not fled very far
before he was taken to one Terentius. We can imagine
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how willingly would Crassus and Caesar have let their men go,
had they dared. But Cicero was in the ascendant, Caesar,
whom we can imagine to have understood that the hour
had not yet come for putting an end to the
offeat republic, and to have perceived also that Cataline was
no fit helpmate for him in such a work must
bide his time and for the moment obey that he
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was inclined to favor the conspirators, there is no doubt,
but at present he could befriend them only in accordance
with the law. The Alabrojas were rewarded. The triitles in
the city who had assisted Cicero were thanked. To Cicero himself,
a supplication was decreed. A supplication was in its origin
a thanksgiving to the gods on account of a victory,
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but it has come to be an honor shown to
the general who had gained the victory. In this case,
it was simply a means of adding glory to Cicero,
and was peculiar, as hitherto the reward had only been
conferred for military service. Remembering that, we can understand what
at the time must have been the feeling in Rome
as to the benefits conferred by the activity and patriotism
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of the consul. On the evening of the same day,
the third of December, Cico again addressed the people, explaining
to them what he had done and what he had
before explained in the Senate. This was the third Cataline speech,
and for rapid narrative is perhaps surpassed by nothing that
he ever spoke. He explains again the motives by which
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he had been actuated, and in doing so extols the courage,
the sagacity, the activity of Catiline, while he ridicules the
folly and the fury of the others. Had Cataline remained,
he says, we should have been forced to fight with
him here in the city. But with Lentulus the sleepy,
and Cassius the fat, and Cathygus the mad, it has
(30:59):
been compared narratively easy to deal. It was on this
account that he had got rid of him, knowing that
their presence would do no harm. Then he reminds the
people of all that the gods have done for them,
and addresses them in language which makes one feel that
they did believe in their gods. It is one instance,
one out of many which history and experience afford us,
(31:21):
in which an honest and a good man has endeavored
to use for salutary purposes a faith in which he
has not himself participated. Does the Bishop of to day,
when he calls upon his clergy to pray for fine weather,
believe that the Almighty will change the ordained seasons and
cause his causes to be inoperative, because farmers are anxious
(31:42):
for their hay or for their wheat. But he feels
that when men are in trouble, it is well that
they should hold communion with the powers of heaven. So
much also Cicero believed, and therefore spoke as he did
on this occasion, as to his own religious views. I
shall say something in a future chapter, then in a
passage most beautiful for its language, though it is hardly
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in accordance with our idea of the manner in which
a man should speak of himself, He explains his own
ambition for all which my fellow countrymen, I ask for
no other recompense, no ornament or honor, no monument, but
that this day may live in your memories. It is
within your breasts that I would garner and keep fresh
(32:27):
my triumph, my glory, the trophies of my exploits. No silent,
voiceless statue, nothing which can be bestowed upon the worthless
can give me delight. Only by your remembrance. Can my
fortunes be nurtured by your good words, by the records
which you shall cause to be written, Can they be
(32:47):
strengthened and perpetuated I do think that this day, the
memory of which I trust may be eternal, will be
famous in history, because the city has been preserved, and
because my consulship has been glorious. He ends the paragraph
by an allusion to Pompey, admitting Pompey to a brotherhood
(33:08):
of patriotism and praise. We shall see how Pompey repaid him.
How many things must have been astir in his mind
when he spoke those words of Pompey. In the next sentence,
he tells the people of his own danger. He has
taken care of their safety. It is for them to
take care of his. But they, these quirites, these Roman citizens,
(33:31):
these masters of the world by whom everything was supposed
to be governed, could take care of no one, certainly
not of themselves, as certainly not of another. They could
only vote now this way, and now that as somebody
might tell them, or more probably, as somebody might pay them,
Pompey was coming home and would soon be the favorite.
(33:55):
Cicero must have felt that he had deserved much of Pompey,
but was by no means sure that the debt of
gratitude would be paid. Now we come to the fourth
or last catilin oration, which was made to the Senate
convened on the fifth of December with the purpose of
deciding the fate of the leading conspirators who were held
in custody. We learned to what purport were three of
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the speeches made during this debate, those of Caesar, and
of Cato, and of Cicero. The first two are given
to us by Sallust, but we can hardly think that
we have the exact words. The cesarean spirit which induced
Sallust to ignore altogether. The words of Cicero would have
induced him to give his own representation of the other two,
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even though we were to suppose that he had been
able to have them taken down by shorthand writers. Cicero's
words we have no doubt with such polishing as may
have been added to the shorthand writer's notes by Tyro,
his slave and secretary. The three are compassible enough with
the other, and we are entitled to believe that we
(34:59):
know the law argument used by the three rouses. Silanus,
one of the consuls elect, began the debate by counseling death.
We may take it for granted that he had been
persuaded by Cicero to make this proposition. During the discussion,
he trembled at the consequences and declared himself for an
adjournment of their decision till they should have dealt with Cataline. Murina,
(35:22):
the other consul elect, and Catulus, the prince of the Senate,
spoke for death. Tiberius Nero, grandfather of Tiberius the Emperor,
made that proposition for adjournment, to which Silanus gave way. Then,
or I should say, rather, in the course of the debate,
for we do not know who else may have spoken,
Caesar got up and made his proposition. His purpose was
(35:45):
to save the victims, but he knew well that with
such a spirit abroad as that existing in the Senate
and the city, he could only do so not by absolving,
but by condemning wicked, as these men might be abominably wicked.
It was, he said, for the Senate to think of
their own dignity rather than of the enormity of the crime.
(36:07):
As they could not he suggested, invent any new punishment
adequate to so abominable a crime. It would be better
that they should leave the conspirators to be dealt with
by the ordinary laws. It was thus that cunningly he
threw out the idea that as senators they had no
power of death. He did not dare to tell them
directly that any danger would menace them, but he exposed
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the danger skillfully before their eyes. Their crimes, he says, again,
deserve worse than any torture you can inflict. But men
generally recollect what comes last. When the punishment is severe,
men will remember the severity rather than the crime. He
(36:50):
argues all this extremely well. The speech is one of
great ingenuity. Whether the words be the words of Sallust
or of Caesar, we may doubt, indeed, whether the general
assertion he made as to death had much weight with
the senators when he told them that death to the
wicked was a relief, whereas life was a lasting punishment.
But when he went on to remind them of the
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Lex Portchia, by which the power of punishing a Roman citizen,
even under the laws, was limited to banishment, unless by
a plebiscite of the people generally ordering death, then he
was efficacious. He ended by proposing that the goods of
the conspirators should be sold, and that the men should
be condemned to imprisonment for life each in some separate town.
(37:34):
This would, I believe, have been quite as illegal as
the death sentence, but it would not have been irrevocable.
The Senate or the people in the next year could
have restored to the men their liberty and compensated them
for their property. Cicero was determined that the men should die.
They had not obeyed him by leaving the city, and
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he was convinced that while they lived, the conspiracy would
live also. He fully understood the danger and resolved to
meet it. He replied to Caesar, and with infinite skill,
refrained from the expression of any strong opinion while he
led his hearers to the conviction that death was necessary
for himself. He had been told of his danger. But
(38:17):
if a man be brave in his duty, death cannot
be disgraceful to him, To one who had reached the
honors of the consulship, it could not be premature to
know wise man. Could it be a misery? Though his brother,
though his wife, though his little boy and his daughter
just married, were warning him of his peril. Not by
all that would he be influenced, Do you, he says,
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conscript fathers look to the safety of the republic. These
are not the Grachai nor Saturninus, who are brought to
you for judgment, men who broke the laws indeed, and
therefore suffered death, but who still were not unpatriotic. These
men had sworn to burn the city, to slay the senate,
to force cataline upon you as a ruler. The proofs
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of this are in your own hands. It was for me,
as your consul, to bring the facts before you. Now
it is for you, at once before night, to decide
what shall be done. The conspirators are very many. It
is not only with these view that you are dealing on.
Whatever you decide, decide quickly. Caesar tells you of the
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Sempronian law, the law namely forbidding the death of a
Roman citizen. But can he be regarded as a citizen
who has been found in arms against the city. Then
there is a fling at Caesar's assumed clemency, showing us
that Caesar had already endeavored to make capital out of
that virtue, which he displayed afterwards so signally at Alicia
(39:51):
and Uxiladunum. Then again he speaks of himself in words
so grand that it is impossible, but to sympathize with him.
Let skip p Pio's name be glorious, he by whose
wisdom and valor Hannibal was forced out of Italy. Let
Africanus be praised loudly, who destroyed Carthage and Numantia, the
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two cities which were most hostile to Rome. Let Powless
be regarded as great, he whose triumph that great king
Perses adorned. Let Marius be held in undying honor, who
twice saved Italy from foreign yoke. Let Pompey be praised
above all, whose noble deeds are as wide as the
sun's course. Perhaps among them there may be a spot
(40:36):
two for me. Unless, indeed, to win provinces to which
we may take ourselves in exile is more than to
guard that city to which the conquerors of provinces may
return in safety. The last words of the orator also
are fine. Therefore, conscript fathers, decide wisely and without fear.
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Your own safety, and that of your wives and children,
that of your hearts and altars, the temples of your gods,
the homes contained in your city, Your liberty, the welfare
of Italy and of the whole Republic are at stake.
It is for you to decide. In me, you have
a consul who will obey your decrees and will see
(41:23):
that they be made to prevail while the breath of
life remains to him. Cato then spoke advocating death, and
the senate decreed that the men should die. Cicero himself
led Lentilos down to the vaulted prison below, in which
executioners were ready for the work, and the other four
men were made to follow. A few minutes afterward, in
(41:47):
the gleaming of the evening, when Cicero was being led
home by the applauding multitude, he was asked after the
fate of the conspirators. He answered them but by one
word weiks. There is said to have been a superstition
with the Romans as to all mention of death. They
have lived their lives. As to what was being done
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outside Rome with the army of conspiracies in Etruria, it
is not necessary for the biographer of Cicero to say much.
Catiline fought and died fighting. The conspiracy was then over.
On the thirty first of December, Cicero retired from his office,
and Catiline fell at the Battle of Pistoia on the
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fifth of January following BC sixty two. A Roman historian,
writing in the reign of Tiberius has thought it worth
his while to remind us that a great glory was
added to Cicero's consular year by the birth of Augustus
him who afterwards became Augustus Caesar. Had a Roman been
(42:50):
living now, he might be excused for saying that it
was an honor to Augustus to have been born in
the year of Cicero's consulship. End of Chapter nine
Chapter nine, Part two of the Life of Cicero, Volume one.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Philiper Jevons. The Life
of Cicero, Volume one by Anthony Trollop. Chapter nine, Catiline,
(00:23):
Part two, The second conspiracy was attempted in the consulship
of Cicero BC. Sixty three, two years after the first
Catiline had struggled for the consulship and had failed again.
There would be no province, no plunder, no power. This interference,
as it must have seemed to him, with his peculiar privileges,
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had all come from Cicero. Cicero was the busybody who
was attempting to stop the order of things which had,
to his thinking, been specially ordained by all the gods
for the sustenance of one so well born and at
the same time so poor as himself. There was a
vulgar meddling about it, all coming from the violent virtue
(01:06):
of a consul whose father had been a nobody at Alpenum,
which was well calculated to drive Cataline into madness. So
he went to work and got together in Rome a
body of men as discontented and almost as nobly born
as himself, and in the country north of Rome an
army of rebels, and began his operations with very little secrecy.
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In all the story, the most remarkable feature is the
openness with which many of the details of the conspiracy
were carried on. The existence of the rebel army was known.
It was known that Catiline was the leader, The causes
of his disaffection were known, His comrades in guilt were known.
When any special act was intended, such as might be
the murder of the consul or the firing of the city,
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secret plots were concocted in abundance, but the grand fact
of a wide spread conspiracy could go naked in Rome,
and not even as Cicero dare to meddle with it.
Side note b c. Sixty three it at forty four.
As to this second conspiracy, the conspiracy with which Sallust
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and Cicero have made us so well acquainted, there is
no sufficient ground for asserting that Caesar was concerned in it,
that he was greatly concerned in the treatment of the conspirators.
There is no doubt he had probably learned to appreciate
the rage, the madness, the impotence of cataline at their
proper worth. He, too, I think, must have looked upon
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Cicero as a meddling over virtuous, busybody, as did even
Pompey when he returned from the East. What practical use
could there be in such a man at such a time,
in one who really believed in honesty, who thought of
liberty in the republic, and imagined that he could set
the world right by talking. Such must have been the
feeling of Caesar, who had both experience and foresight to
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tell him that Rome wanted and must have a master.
He probably had patriotism enough to feel that he, if
he could acquire the mastership, would do something beyond robbery.
Would not satisfy himself with cutting the throats of all
his enemies and feeding his supporters with the property of
his opponents. But Cicero was impracticable, unless, indeed, he could
(03:22):
be so flattered as to be made useful. It was thus,
I think, that Caesar regarded Cicero, and thus that he
induced Pompey to regard him. But now in the year
of his consulship, Cicero had really talked himself into power,
and for this year his virtue must be allowed to
have its full way. He did so much in this year,
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was so really efficacious in restraining for a time the
greed and violence of the aristocracy, that it is not
surprising that he was taught to believe in himself. There
were too enough of others anxious for the Republic to
bolster him up in his own belief. There was that Cornelius,
in whose defense Cicero made the two great speeches, which
have been unfortunately lost. And there was Cato, and up
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to this time there was Pompey, as Cicero thought. Cicero,
till he found himself candidate for the consulship, had contented
himself with undertaking separate cases in which, no doubt politics
were concerned, but which were not exclusively political. He had
advocated the employment of Pompey in the East, and had
(04:28):
defended Cornelius. He was well acquainted with the history of
the Republic, but he had probably never asked himself the
question whether it was in mortal peril, and if so,
whether it might possibly be saved. In his consulship he
did do so, and, seeing less of the republic than
we can see now, told himself that it was possible.
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The stories told to us of Catalan's conspiracy by Sallust
and by Cicero are so little conflicting that we can
trust them both. Trust them both, we are justified in
believing that we know the truth. We are here concerned
only with the part which Cicero took. Nothing, I think,
which Cicero says is contradicted by Sallust, Though of much
(05:12):
of that Cicero certainly did. Sallust is silent. Sallust damns him,
but only by faint praise. We may therefore take the
account of the plot as given by Cicero himself as verified. Indeed,
I am not aware that any of Cicero's facts have
been questioned. Sallust declares that Cataline's attempt was popular in Rome. Generally, this,
(05:35):
I think must be taken as showing simply that revolution
and conspiracy were in themselves popular. That as a condition
of things around him, such as existed in Rome, a
plotter of state plots should be able to collect a
body of followers was a thing, of course, that there
were many citizens who would not work, and who expected
to live in luxury on public or private plunder is certain.
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When the conspiracy was first announced in the Senate, Catiline
had an army collected, but we have no proof that
the hearts of the inhabitants of Rome generally were with
the conspirators. On the other hand, we have proof in
the unparalleled devotion shown by the citizens to Cicero after
the conspiracy was quelled, that their hearts were with him.
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The populace, fond of change, liked a disturbance, but there
is nothing to show that Catiline was ever beloved, as
had been the Grachai and other tribunes of the people
who came after them. Catiline, in the autumn of the
year b c. Sixty three, had arranged the outside circumstances
of his conspiracy, knowing that he would for the third
time be unsuccessful in his canvas for the consulship. That
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Cicero with other senators should be murdered seems to have
been their first object, and that then the consulship should
be seized by force. On the twenty first October, Cicero
made his first report to the Senate as to the
conspiracy and call upon Cataline for his answer. It was
then that Cataline made his famous reply that the republic
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had two bodies, of which one was weak and had
a bad head, meaning the aristocracy with Cicero as its chief,
and the other strong, but without any head, meaning the people.
But that as for himself, so well had the people
deserved of him, that as long as he lived, a
head should be forthcoming. Then at that sitting, the Senate decreed,
(07:30):
in the usual formula, that the consuls were to take
care that the republic did not suffer. On the twenty
second of October, the new consuls Silanus and Morena were elected.
On the twenty third, Catiline was regularly accused of conspiracy
by pawless Lepidus, a young nobleman. In conformity with the
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law which had been enacted fifty five years earlier, deu
publica as to violence applied to the state. Two days afterward,
it was officially reported that Manlius or Malius, as he
seems to have been generally called, Cataline's lieutenant, had openly
taken up arms in Atruria. The twenty seventh had been
fixed by the conspirators for the murder of Cicero and
(08:12):
the other senators that all this was to be and
was so arranged by Catiline, had been declared in the
Senate by Cicero himself on that day when Cataline told
them of the two bodies and the two heads. Cicero,
with his intelligence, ingenuity, and industry, had learned every detail.
(08:33):
There was one curious among the conspirators, a fair specimen
of the young Roman nobleman of the day, who told
it all to his mistress Foolia, and she carried the
information to the consul. It is all narrated with fair
dramatic accuracy in ben Jonson's Dull Play, though he has
attributed to Caesar a share in the plot for doing
(08:54):
which he had no authority. Cicero, on that sitting in
the Senate, had been specially anxious to make Catiline understand
that he knew privately every circumstance of the plot. Throughout
the whole conspiracy. His object was not to take Catiline,
but to drive him out of Rome. If the people
could be stirred up to kill him in their wrath,
(09:16):
that might be well. In that way there might be
an end of all the trouble. But if that did
not come to pass, then it would be best to
make the city unbearable to the conspirators. If they could
be driven out, they must either take themselves to foreign
parts and be dispersed, or must else fight and assuredly
be conquered. Cicero himself was never blood thirsty, but the
(09:39):
necessity was strong upon him of ridding the republic from
these bloodthirsty men. The scheme for destroying Cicero and the
senators on the twenty seventh of October had proved abortive.
On the sixth of the next month, a meeting was
held in the house of one Marcus Porcius Lyka, at
which a plot was arranged for the case killing of
(10:00):
Cicero the next day. For the killing of Cicero alone,
he having been by this time found to be the
one a great obstacle in their path, two knights were
told off for the service, named Vargunteus and Cornelius. These,
after the Roman fashion, were to make their way early
on the following morning into the Consul's bedroom for the
(10:20):
ostensible purpose of paying him their morning compliments, But when
there they were to slay him. All this, however, was
told to Cicero, and the two knights when they came,
were refused admittance. If Cicero had been a man given
to fear, as has been said of him, he must
have passed a wretched life at this period. As far
(10:41):
as I can judge of his words and doings throughout
his life, he was not harassed by constitutional timidity. He
feared to disgrace his name, to lower his authority, to
become small in the eyes of men, to make political mistakes,
to do that which might turn against him. In much
which of this there was a falling off from that
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dignity which, if we do not often find it in
a man, we can all of us imagine. But of
personal dread as to his own skin, as to his
own life, there was very little at this time, when,
as he knew well, many men with many weapons in
their hands, men who were altogether unscrupulous, were in search
for his blood. He never seems to have trembled, but
(11:26):
all Rome trembled, even according to Sallust. I have already
shown how he declares in one part of his narrative
that the common people as a body were with cataline,
and have attempted to explain what was meant by that
expression in another, in an earlier chapter. He says that
the state, meaning the city, was disturbed by all this,
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and its appearance changed. Instead of the joy and ease
which had lately prevailed the effect of the long peace,
a sudden sadness fell upon everyone the passage. Because that
other passage has been taken as proving the popularity of Cataline,
there can, I think, be no doubt that the population
of Rome was as a body afraid of Cataline. The
(12:11):
city was to be burnt down, The consuls and the
Senate were to be murdered, debts were to be wiped out.
Slaves were probably to be encouraged against their masters. The
permotaquitas and the kunq d'a plebs of which Sallust speaks
mean that all the householders were disturbed, and that all
the roths were eager with revolutionary hopes. On the eighth
(12:35):
of November, the day after that on which the consul
was to have been murdered in his own house, he
called a special meeting of the Senate in the Temple
of Jupiter Startle. The Senate in Cicero's time was convened
according to expedients, or perhaps as to the dignity of
the occasion in various temples. Of these, none had a
higher reputation than that of the Special Jupiter, who was
(12:58):
held to have befriended Rommels in his fight with the Sabines.
Here was launched that thunderbolt of eloquence which all English
schoolboys have known for its coup squetandem abutere catilina patientia nostra.
Whether it be from the ore which has come down
to me from my earliest years, mixed perhaps with something
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of dread for the great pedagogue who first made the
words to sound grandy in my ears, or whether true
critical judgment has since approved to me the real weight
of the words they certainly do contain for my intelligence
and expression of almost divine indignation. Then there follows a
string of questions, which to translate would be vain. Which
(13:41):
to quote, for those who read the language is surely unnecessary.
It is said to have been a fault with Cicero,
that in his speeches he runs too much into that
vein of wrathful interrogation, which undoubtedly palls upon us in
English oratory when frequent resort is made to it. It
seems to be too easy and contained too little of argument.
(14:02):
It was this probably of which his contemporaries complained when
they declared him to be florid, redundant, and asiatic in
his style. This questioning runs through nearly the whole speech,
but the reader cannot fail to acknowledge its efficacy in
reference to the matter in hand. Cataline was sitting there
himself in the Senate, and the questions were for the
(14:24):
most part addressed to him. We can see him now,
a man of large frame, with bold glaring eyes, looking
in his wrath, as though he were hardly able to
keep his hands from the consul's throat, even there in
the Senate. Though he knew that this attack was to
be made on him, he had stalked into the temple
and seated himself in a place of honor among the
(14:46):
benches intended for those who had been consuls. When there
no one spoke to him, no one saluted him. The
consular senators shrunk away, leaving their places of privilege. Even
his brother conspirators, of whom many were present, did not
dare to recognize him. Lentilus was no doubt there, and
(15:07):
Cethegus and two of the Sullen family, and Cassius Longinus
and Autronius, and Lyca and Curius. All of them were
or had been conspirators in the same cause. Caesar was
there too, and Crassus, a fellow conspirator with Catiline, would
probably be a senator. Cicero knew them all. We cannot
(15:31):
say that in this matter Caesar was guilty. But Cicero
no doubt felt that Caesar's heart was with Catiline. It
was his present task, so to thunder with his eloquence,
that he should turn these bitter enemies into seeming friends,
to drive Cataline from out of the midst of them,
so that it should seem that he had been expelled
by those who were, in truth his brother conspirators. And
(15:54):
this it was that he did. He declared the nature
of the plot, and boldly said that such being the facts,
Cataline deserved death. If he says, I should order you
to be taken and killed, believe me, I should be
blamed rather for my delay in doing so than for
my cruelty. He spoke throughout as though all the power
(16:17):
were in his own hands, either to strike or to forbear.
But it was his object to drive him out and
not to kill him. Go. He said that camp of
yours and Mallius, your lieutenant, are too long without you.
Take of friends with you, take them all. Cleanse the
city of your presence. When its walls are between you
(16:38):
and me. Then I shall feel myself secure among us.
Here you may no longer stir yourself. I will not
have it. I will not endure it. If I were
to suffer you to be killed, your followers in the
conspiracy would remain here. But if you go out as
I desire you, de cesspool of filth will drain itself
(16:59):
off from our the city. Do you hesitate to do
at my command that which you would fain do yourself?
The consul requires an enemy to depart from the city.
Do you ask me whether you are to go into exile?
I do not order it, but if you ask my counsel,
I advise it. Exile was the severest punishment known by
(17:23):
the Roman law as applicable to a citizen, and such
a punishment it was in the power of no consul
or other officer of state to inflict. Though he had
taken upon himself the duty of protecting the republic, still
he could not condemn a citizen. It was to the
moral effect of his words that he must trust non Jubo,
(17:44):
said Sime consulis Souardeo. Cataline heard him to the end,
and then, muttering a curse, left the senate and went
out of the city. Sallust tells us that he threatened
to extinguish in the mess wist of the general ruin
he would create the flames prepared for his own destruction. Sallust, however,
(18:06):
was not present on the occasion, and the threat probably
had been uttered at an earlier period of Cataline's career.
Cicero tells us expressly in one of his subsequent works
that Catiline was struck dumb of this first Catiline oration.
Sallust says that Marcus Tullius, the Consul, either fearing the
presence of the man, or stirred to anger, made a
(18:28):
brilliant speech very useful to the republic. This coming from
an enemy, is stronger testimony to the truth of the
story told by Cicero than would have been any vehement
praise from the pen of a friend. Catiline met some
of his colleagues the same night. They were the very
man who, as senators, had been present at his confusion,
(18:49):
and to them he declared his purpose of going. There
was nothing to be done in the city by him.
The consul was not to be reached. Catiline himself was
too closely what for personal action. He would join the
army at Phisilea, and then return and burn the city.
His friends, Lentilus, Ketgus and the others were to remain
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and be ready for fire and slaughter. As soon as Cataline,
with his army should appear before the walls. He went,
and Cicero had been so far successful. But these men, Lentilus,
Ketagus and the other senators, though they had not dared
to sit near Cataline in the Senate or to speak
a word to him, went about their work zealously. When
(19:32):
evening had come, a report was spread among the people
that the consul had taken upon himself to drive a
citizen into exile. Cataline, the ill used Catiline. Catiline, the
friend of the people, had, they said, gone to Marseilles,
in order that he might escape the fury of the
tyrant consul. In this we see the jealousy of Romans
(19:53):
as to the infliction of any punishment by an individual
officer on a citizen. It was with a full night
knowledge of what was likely to come that Cicero had
ironically declared that he only advised the conspirator to go.
The feeling was so strong that on the next morning
he found himself compelled to address the people on the subject.
Then was uttered the second Catalan oration, which was spoken
(20:16):
in the open air to the citizens at large. Here, too,
there are words among those with which he began his speech,
almost as familiar to us as the quosquetandem abeit excess it? Eh?
Was it errupit? This Cataline, says Cicero, this pest of
his country, raging in his madness. I have turned out
(20:38):
of the city. If you like it better, I have
expelled him by my very words. He has departed, he
has fled, he has gone out from among us, he
has broken away. I have made this conspiracy plain to
you all as I said I would. Unless, indeed, there
may be some one here who does not believe that
the friends of Cataline will do the same as Cataline
(21:00):
would have done. But there is no time now for
soft measures. We have to be strong handed. There is
one thing I will do for these men. Let them
too go out, so that Cataline shall not pine for them.
I will show them the road he has gone by
the weir Aurelia. If they will hurry, they may catch
(21:21):
him before night. He implies by this that the story
about Marseilles was false. Then he speaks with irony of
himself as that violent consul who could drive citizens into
exile by the very breath of his mouth. Ego ware
heemenzi le consurl quierbo qiwes in exiliu meikio. So he
(21:43):
goes on in truth, defending himself, but leading them with
him to take part in the accusation which he intends
to bring against the chief conspirators who remain in the city.
If they too will go, they may go unscathed. If
they choose to remain, let them look to themselves. Through
it all, we can see that there is but one
(22:04):
thing that he fears, that he shall be driven, by
the exigencies of the occasion, to take some steps which
shall afterwards be judged not to have been strictly legal,
and which shall put him into the power of his enemies,
when the day of his ascendancy shall have passed away.
It crops out repeatedly in these speeches he seems to
be aware that some over strong measure will be forced
(22:27):
upon him, for which he alone will be held responsible.
If he can only avoid that, he will fear nothing else.
If he cannot avoid it, he will encounter even that danger.
His foresight was wonderfully accurate. The strong hand was used,
and the punishment came upon him not from his enemies,
(22:48):
but from his friends, almost to the bursting of his heart.
Though the Senate had decreed that the consuls were to
see that the Republic should take no harm, and though
it was presumed that extraordinary power was thereby conferred, it
is evident that no power was conferred of inflicting punishment Antony,
as Cicero's colleague was nothing. The authority, the responsibility, the
(23:12):
action were and were intended to remain with Cicero. He
could not legally banish anyone. It was only too evident
that they must be much slaughter. There was the army
of rebels with which it would be necessary to fight.
Let them go, these rebels within the city, and either
join the army and get themselves killed, or else disappear
(23:34):
whither they would among the provinces. The object of this
second catalin oration spoken to the people, was to convince
the remaining conspirators that they had better go, and to
teach the citizens generally that in giving such council he
was banishing no one as far as the citizens were concerned.
He was successful, but he did not induce the friends
(23:57):
of Catalan to follow their chief. This took place on
the ninth of November. After the oration, the Senate met
again and declared Catiline and Malleus to be public enemies.
Twenty four days elapsed before the third speech was spoken,
twenty four days during which Rome must have been in
a state of very great fever. Cicero was actively engaged
(24:20):
in unraveling the plots, the details of which were still
being carried on within the city. But nevertheless he made
that speech for Morainer before the judicial bench, of which
I gave an account in the last chapter, and also
probably another for Piso, of which we have nothing left.
We cannot but marvel that he should have been able
at such a time to devote his mind to such
subjects and carefully to study all the details of legal cases.
(24:45):
It was only on October the twenty first that Morena
had been elected consul, and yet on the twentieth of
November Cicero defended him with great skill on a charge
of bribery. There is an ease, a playfulness, a softness,
a drollery about this speech, which appears to be almost
incompatible with the stern, absorbing realities and great personal dangers
(25:07):
in the midst of which he was placed. But the
agility of his mind was such that there appears to
have been no difficulty to him in these rapid changes.
On the same day, the twentieth of November, when Cicero
was defending Marina, the plot was being carried on at
the house of a certain Roman lady named Sempronia. It
(25:28):
was she of whom sallust had said that she danced
better than became an honest woman. If we can believe Salluste,
she was steeped in luxury and vice. At her house,
a most vile project was hatched for introducing into Rome,
Rome's bitterest foreign foes. There were in the city at
this time certain delegates from a people called the Alabroges,
(25:49):
who inhabited the lower part of Savoy. The Alabroges were
of Gaulish race. There were warlike angry, and at the
present moment peculiarly discontented with Rome. There had been certain injuries,
either real or presumed, respecting which these delegates had been
sent to the city. There they had been delayed and
(26:10):
fobbed off with official replies which gave no satisfaction, and
were supposed to be ready to do any evil possible
to the republic. What if they could be got to
go back suddenly to their homes and bring a legion
of red haired ghauls to assist the conspirators in burning
down Rome. A deputation from the delegates came to Sempronia's house,
(26:31):
and there met the conspirators, Lentilus and others. They entered
freely into the project. But having, as was usual with
foreign embassies at Rome, a patron or peculiar friend of
their own among the aristocracy won Fabius Sanga by name,
they thought it well to consult him. Sanga, as a
matter of course, told everything to our astute consul. Then
(26:56):
the matter was arranged with more than all the craft
of a modern in stea of police. The allobroges were
instructed to lend themselves to the device, stipulating, however, that
they should have a written signed authority which they could
show to their rulers at home. The written signed documents
were given to them with certain conspirators to help them
(27:17):
out of the city. They were sent on their way.
At a bridge over the Tiber, they were stopped by
Cicero's emissaries. There was a feigned fight, but no blood
was shed, and the ambassadors, with their letters, were brought
home to the consul. We were astonished at the marvelous
folly of these conspirators, so that we could hardly have
(27:37):
believed the story had it not been told alike by
Cicero and by Sallust, and had not allusion to the
details been common among later writers. The ambassadors were taken
at the Milvian Bridge early on the morning of the
third of December, and in the course of that day
Cicero sent for the leaders of the conspiracy to come
to him. Lentilus, who was then prital, Kethigus, Gabinius, and
(28:00):
Statilius all obeyed the summons. They did not know what
had occurred, and probably felt that their best hope of
safety lay in compliance. Kyparius was also sent for, but he,
for the moment escaped in vain, for before two days
were over he had been taken and put to death
with the others. Cicero again called the Senate together and
(28:22):
entered the meeting, leading the guilty pritor by the hand.
Here the offenders were examined and practically acknowledged their guilt.
The proofs against them were so convincing that they could
not deny it. There were the signatures of some arms
were found hidden in the house of another. The Senate
decreed that the men should be kept endurance till some
(28:42):
decision as to their fate should have been pronounced. Each
of them was then given in custody to some noble
Roman of the day Lentilus. The prital was confided to
the keeping of a Censil Cathagus, to Cornificius, Statilius, to Caesar, Gabinius,
to Crassus, and Cayparius, who had not fled very far
before he was taken to one Terentius. We can imagine
(29:07):
how willingly would Crassus and Caesar have let their men go,
had they dared. But Cicero was in the ascendant, Caesar,
whom we can imagine to have understood that the hour
had not yet come for putting an end to the
offeat republic, and to have perceived also that Cataline was
no fit helpmate for him in such a work must
bide his time and for the moment obey that he
(29:30):
was inclined to favor the conspirators, there is no doubt,
but at present he could befriend them only in accordance
with the law. The Alabrojas were rewarded. The triitles in
the city who had assisted Cicero were thanked. To Cicero himself,
a supplication was decreed. A supplication was in its origin
a thanksgiving to the gods on account of a victory,
(29:53):
but it has come to be an honor shown to
the general who had gained the victory. In this case,
it was simply a means of adding glory to Cicero,
and was peculiar, as hitherto the reward had only been
conferred for military service. Remembering that, we can understand what
at the time must have been the feeling in Rome
as to the benefits conferred by the activity and patriotism
(30:15):
of the consul. On the evening of the same day,
the third of December, Cico again addressed the people, explaining
to them what he had done and what he had
before explained in the Senate. This was the third Cataline speech,
and for rapid narrative is perhaps surpassed by nothing that
he ever spoke. He explains again the motives by which
(30:37):
he had been actuated, and in doing so extols the courage,
the sagacity, the activity of Catiline, while he ridicules the
folly and the fury of the others. Had Cataline remained,
he says, we should have been forced to fight with
him here in the city. But with Lentulus the sleepy,
and Cassius the fat, and Cathygus the mad, it has
(30:59):
been compared narratively easy to deal. It was on this
account that he had got rid of him, knowing that
their presence would do no harm. Then he reminds the
people of all that the gods have done for them,
and addresses them in language which makes one feel that
they did believe in their gods. It is one instance,
one out of many which history and experience afford us,
(31:21):
in which an honest and a good man has endeavored
to use for salutary purposes a faith in which he
has not himself participated. Does the Bishop of to day,
when he calls upon his clergy to pray for fine weather,
believe that the Almighty will change the ordained seasons and
cause his causes to be inoperative, because farmers are anxious
(31:42):
for their hay or for their wheat. But he feels
that when men are in trouble, it is well that
they should hold communion with the powers of heaven. So
much also Cicero believed, and therefore spoke as he did
on this occasion, as to his own religious views. I
shall say something in a future chapter, then in a
passage most beautiful for its language, though it is hardly
(32:05):
in accordance with our idea of the manner in which
a man should speak of himself, He explains his own
ambition for all which my fellow countrymen, I ask for
no other recompense, no ornament or honor, no monument, but
that this day may live in your memories. It is
within your breasts that I would garner and keep fresh
(32:27):
my triumph, my glory, the trophies of my exploits. No silent,
voiceless statue, nothing which can be bestowed upon the worthless
can give me delight. Only by your remembrance. Can my
fortunes be nurtured by your good words, by the records
which you shall cause to be written, Can they be
(32:47):
strengthened and perpetuated I do think that this day, the
memory of which I trust may be eternal, will be
famous in history, because the city has been preserved, and
because my consulship has been glorious. He ends the paragraph
by an allusion to Pompey, admitting Pompey to a brotherhood
(33:08):
of patriotism and praise. We shall see how Pompey repaid him.
How many things must have been astir in his mind
when he spoke those words of Pompey. In the next sentence,
he tells the people of his own danger. He has
taken care of their safety. It is for them to
take care of his. But they, these quirites, these Roman citizens,
(33:31):
these masters of the world by whom everything was supposed
to be governed, could take care of no one, certainly
not of themselves, as certainly not of another. They could
only vote now this way, and now that as somebody
might tell them, or more probably, as somebody might pay them,
Pompey was coming home and would soon be the favorite.
(33:55):
Cicero must have felt that he had deserved much of Pompey,
but was by no means sure that the debt of
gratitude would be paid. Now we come to the fourth
or last catilin oration, which was made to the Senate
convened on the fifth of December with the purpose of
deciding the fate of the leading conspirators who were held
in custody. We learned to what purport were three of
(34:18):
the speeches made during this debate, those of Caesar, and
of Cato, and of Cicero. The first two are given
to us by Sallust, but we can hardly think that
we have the exact words. The cesarean spirit which induced
Sallust to ignore altogether. The words of Cicero would have
induced him to give his own representation of the other two,
(34:39):
even though we were to suppose that he had been
able to have them taken down by shorthand writers. Cicero's
words we have no doubt with such polishing as may
have been added to the shorthand writer's notes by Tyro,
his slave and secretary. The three are compassible enough with
the other, and we are entitled to believe that we
(34:59):
know the law argument used by the three rouses. Silanus,
one of the consuls elect, began the debate by counseling death.
We may take it for granted that he had been
persuaded by Cicero to make this proposition. During the discussion,
he trembled at the consequences and declared himself for an
adjournment of their decision till they should have dealt with Cataline. Murina,
(35:22):
the other consul elect, and Catulus, the prince of the Senate,
spoke for death. Tiberius Nero, grandfather of Tiberius the Emperor,
made that proposition for adjournment, to which Silanus gave way. Then,
or I should say, rather, in the course of the debate,
for we do not know who else may have spoken,
Caesar got up and made his proposition. His purpose was
(35:45):
to save the victims, but he knew well that with
such a spirit abroad as that existing in the Senate
and the city, he could only do so not by absolving,
but by condemning wicked, as these men might be abominably wicked.
It was, he said, for the Senate to think of
their own dignity rather than of the enormity of the crime.
(36:07):
As they could not he suggested, invent any new punishment
adequate to so abominable a crime. It would be better
that they should leave the conspirators to be dealt with
by the ordinary laws. It was thus that cunningly he
threw out the idea that as senators they had no
power of death. He did not dare to tell them
directly that any danger would menace them, but he exposed
(36:29):
the danger skillfully before their eyes. Their crimes, he says, again,
deserve worse than any torture you can inflict. But men
generally recollect what comes last. When the punishment is severe,
men will remember the severity rather than the crime. He
(36:50):
argues all this extremely well. The speech is one of
great ingenuity. Whether the words be the words of Sallust
or of Caesar, we may doubt, indeed, whether the general
assertion he made as to death had much weight with
the senators when he told them that death to the
wicked was a relief, whereas life was a lasting punishment.
But when he went on to remind them of the
(37:11):
Lex Portchia, by which the power of punishing a Roman citizen,
even under the laws, was limited to banishment, unless by
a plebiscite of the people generally ordering death, then he
was efficacious. He ended by proposing that the goods of
the conspirators should be sold, and that the men should
be condemned to imprisonment for life each in some separate town.
(37:34):
This would, I believe, have been quite as illegal as
the death sentence, but it would not have been irrevocable.
The Senate or the people in the next year could
have restored to the men their liberty and compensated them
for their property. Cicero was determined that the men should die.
They had not obeyed him by leaving the city, and
(37:55):
he was convinced that while they lived, the conspiracy would
live also. He fully understood the danger and resolved to
meet it. He replied to Caesar, and with infinite skill,
refrained from the expression of any strong opinion while he
led his hearers to the conviction that death was necessary
for himself. He had been told of his danger. But
(38:17):
if a man be brave in his duty, death cannot
be disgraceful to him, To one who had reached the
honors of the consulship, it could not be premature to
know wise man. Could it be a misery? Though his brother,
though his wife, though his little boy and his daughter
just married, were warning him of his peril. Not by
all that would he be influenced, Do you, he says,
(38:42):
conscript fathers look to the safety of the republic. These
are not the Grachai nor Saturninus, who are brought to
you for judgment, men who broke the laws indeed, and
therefore suffered death, but who still were not unpatriotic. These
men had sworn to burn the city, to slay the senate,
to force cataline upon you as a ruler. The proofs
(39:06):
of this are in your own hands. It was for me,
as your consul, to bring the facts before you. Now
it is for you, at once before night, to decide
what shall be done. The conspirators are very many. It
is not only with these view that you are dealing on.
Whatever you decide, decide quickly. Caesar tells you of the
(39:29):
Sempronian law, the law namely forbidding the death of a
Roman citizen. But can he be regarded as a citizen
who has been found in arms against the city. Then
there is a fling at Caesar's assumed clemency, showing us
that Caesar had already endeavored to make capital out of
that virtue, which he displayed afterwards so signally at Alicia
(39:51):
and Uxiladunum. Then again he speaks of himself in words
so grand that it is impossible, but to sympathize with him.
Let skip p Pio's name be glorious, he by whose
wisdom and valor Hannibal was forced out of Italy. Let
Africanus be praised loudly, who destroyed Carthage and Numantia, the
(40:11):
two cities which were most hostile to Rome. Let Powless
be regarded as great, he whose triumph that great king
Perses adorned. Let Marius be held in undying honor, who
twice saved Italy from foreign yoke. Let Pompey be praised
above all, whose noble deeds are as wide as the
sun's course. Perhaps among them there may be a spot
(40:36):
two for me. Unless, indeed, to win provinces to which
we may take ourselves in exile is more than to
guard that city to which the conquerors of provinces may
return in safety. The last words of the orator also
are fine. Therefore, conscript fathers, decide wisely and without fear.
(41:00):
Your own safety, and that of your wives and children,
that of your hearts and altars, the temples of your gods,
the homes contained in your city, Your liberty, the welfare
of Italy and of the whole Republic are at stake.
It is for you to decide. In me, you have
a consul who will obey your decrees and will see
(41:23):
that they be made to prevail while the breath of
life remains to him. Cato then spoke advocating death, and
the senate decreed that the men should die. Cicero himself
led Lentilos down to the vaulted prison below, in which
executioners were ready for the work, and the other four
men were made to follow. A few minutes afterward, in
(41:47):
the gleaming of the evening, when Cicero was being led
home by the applauding multitude, he was asked after the
fate of the conspirators. He answered them but by one
word weiks. There is said to have been a superstition
with the Romans as to all mention of death. They
have lived their lives. As to what was being done
(42:10):
outside Rome with the army of conspiracies in Etruria, it
is not necessary for the biographer of Cicero to say much.
Catiline fought and died fighting. The conspiracy was then over.
On the thirty first of December, Cicero retired from his office,
and Catiline fell at the Battle of Pistoia on the
(42:30):
fifth of January following BC sixty two. A Roman historian,
writing in the reign of Tiberius has thought it worth
his while to remind us that a great glory was
added to Cicero's consular year by the birth of Augustus
him who afterwards became Augustus Caesar. Had a Roman been
(42:50):
living now, he might be excused for saying that it
was an honor to Augustus to have been born in
the year of Cicero's consulship. End of Chapter nine
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