The Catilinarian Conspiracy Flashcards
Who was L. Segius Catalina Catiline?
Dates: 108-62 BC
A popularis politician who came from the aristocracy. Failed to gain consulships in 63 and 62 BC on a policy of debt relief. He headed up a revoluntionary movement of thwarted politicians, debtors, veterans, and the poor. Died with his revolutionary army in 62 BC.
What was Catiline prosecuted for? Who had he served under prior to this sentencing? How connected was he in the Senate?
- Had served under Sulla and had been actively involved in the proscriptions,
- He was very well connected and seems to have taken a traditional path along the cursus honorum,
- Was prosecuted for provincial extortion upon his return from pro-praetorian governorship of Africa.
What happened in 66 BC? What does Sallust write Catiline of doing?
- Towards the end of the year, the consuls elect for 65 BC were prosecuted for electoral bribery,
- According to Sallust (Bellum Catilinae 18-19), Catiline was involved in an attempted assassination of their replacements, L. Aurelius Cotta and L. Manlius Torquatus,
- Catiline’s motivation was that he was prevented from standing as a replacement because of the pending court case,
- He apparently joined with one of those convicted of electoral bribery, P. Autronius Paetus, and together with a quaestor, Cn. Calpurnius Piso, plotted to murder the new consuls on the 1st January 65 BC, their first day of office.
What did Catiline plan to happen after the assassinations?
- That he and Autronius Paetus were to seize the consulships and Piso was to govern Spain.
How did the plot fail? What did they plan after?
- Rumours of the plot surfaced, a postponement occurred, and a fresh plan was hatched to extend the murder to include most of the Senate,
- This also failed,
- As an afterword, Piso, despite only being a quaestor, was sent to Spain with pro-praetorian imperium, either at Crassus’ order or that of the optimates, both groups seemingly wanted to set up an alternative power to Pompey.
How did Piso die?
- Pompey had strong client base in Spain after his years of war against Sertorius,
- Piso was killed by his own men.
What does Sallust say of his record of the Catilinarian conspiracy? Why is this so?
- Sallust gives a disclaimer that he cannot be certain about what happened,
- Although he was writing just 20 years later, much of the story may have been fabricated by Catiline’s detractors during and after the events of the conspiracy of 63BC
- Especially Cicero.
What does Cicero write/say of the first Catilinarian conspiracy?
- Within eighteen months of the supposed attempted assassination, Cicero gave a speech as consular candidate in which he made it clear that people now knew about the plot,
- It would, however, be prudent that a politician would obviously deride an opponent during an election campaign,
- Once Catiline had been clearly shown to be attempting revolution in 63, Cicero referred repeatedly to the First Catilarian Conspiracy as he tried to damage Catiline’s reputation,
- In 65, however, Cicero had actually considered defending Catiline against the charge of provincial extortion,
- We can conclude, thus, that whatever truth there was in Catiline and others seeking to kill the Consuls of 65, the story was at first unknown to Cicero; but by mid 64 sufficient rumours existed for Cicero to make political capital of it.
What happened to Catiline’s charges? What did he run for in 63?
Catiline was acquitted of his charge of provincial extortion and stood for election to the consulship of 63.
What did Catiline do in 63, according to Sallust?
- If Sallust is to be believed, Catiline corrupted the upper-class youth of Rome and incited them to usurp their fathers (Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 14-16),
- He had gathered a group of discontented second-rate politicians to support his bid for consulship,
- Their lack of political acumen and experience was one reason why he failed in his consulship bid and the subsequent attempted revolution.
Which speech of Catiline, recorded by Sallust, shows his motivation?
‘Because of this, all influence, power, rank, and wealth are in their hands, or whoever they wish them to be; to us they have left danger, defeat, prosecutions, and poverty… Use me either as your leader or as a soldier in the ranks; my soul and my body shall be at your service. These very schemes I hope to help you carry out as your consul…’ (Catiline Conspiracy 20)
Worth noting that Sallust invented this speech, he was not there and anyone there was subsequently killed.
What were Catiline’s main promises to his supporters?
- He promised magistracies, priesthoods, opportunities for plunder, and proscriptions, but all with him at the head of state,
- He also promised the cornerstone of his electoral campaign, a cancellation of debts or new tablets (novae tabulae),
- The wax tablets on which debts were recorded were to be smoothed over (Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 21).
Who were Catilinine’s promises likely to attract?
- The cancellation of debts was sure to attract the support of those members of the upper classes who had fallen into debt,
- And the masses.
What was happening in the 60s economically? Why?
- During the mid 60s there was a credit crisis in Italy,
- This was because, since Mithridates’ first uprising in 89, businessmen had been unwilling to invest in Asia; but with Pompey’s departure to the east, they expected stability to return,
- Money lenders who had been lending at lower rates to safer enterprises in Italy, including many landowners, both rich and poor, were now calling in their debts.
What was the problem with Catiline’s economic policy?
- Debts cannot simply be cancelled,
- If the debtors were not to pay back the money, then the money lenders would have been out of pocket,
- Hence the naivety of such a policy,
- This explains equestrian and optimate opposition to Catiline.
What does Cicero claim Catiline’s policy caused politically?
Cicero would later play on the agreement between Senate and equestrians at this time to produce what he ‘termed’ concordia ordinum, a harmony of the orders, which he would go on to champion at times of future discord.
What is the Commentariolum Petitionis?
- Authored by Quintus Cicero, the famous Cicero’s brother,
- Dates: c. 65-64 BC,
- Written to Cicero to advise him on his political campaign for consulship.
What did the Commentariolum Petitionis tell Cicero to do, relating to amicitiae?
- That he should follow a definite hierarchy in seeking them out: prioritising nobles, magistrates, especially the consuls, tribunes and other men of influence who can bring their clients with them,
- Cicero should seek out those he may have represented in court, or will represent in the future (Commentariolum Petitionis 13-24).
What letter from Cicero showcases the brevity of amicitiae?
- Writes a letter to Atticus where he apologies that he cannot support Atticus’ uncle, who was in conflict with an associate of the powerful noble L. Domitius Ahenobarbus,
- Cicero sought this noble’s favour (Cicero, Attacum 1.1).
What does the Commentariolum Petitionis tell us of voter integrity?
- (55) tells us that the bribery of voters was commonplace,
- Although there is no suggestion that Cicero should do so, simply that he should guard against it.
Who potentially supported Catiline in this election?
- Crassus and Caesar.
Why did the optimates turn to Cicero?
- Sallust reports that information concerning the conspirators’ willingness to go beyond legitimate means in order to seize power was already being leaked to the optimates,
- They were worried, and turned to Cicero. Despite his being a novus homo, he appeared a safe bet for the consulship,
- Plutarch reports that both the optimates and people were both happy to elect Cicero.
What did Cicero do upon taking the Consulship?
- Immediately made his allegiances known,
- He spoke against the proposed land bill of the tribune P. Servilius Rullus, which would have addressed the needs of the poor who were still gravitating towards Rome for hand-outs and work,
- Rullus’ proposals were wide-ranging: ager publicus in Italy was to be redistributed, while newly acquired land in the provinces would be sold to pay for this.
How did Cicero convince the people against Rullus?
- Played on the fears of the people and persuaded the audience that he was acting in their best interests,
- He was a ‘people’s consul’ guiding the plebs; the land bill was a piece of largesse that would have exhausted the treasury, and the people would all be poorer for it (Cicero, de lege agraria II.7-10),
- Amazingly, through his speech the people did not vote through Rullus’ bill.
What legal case did Caesar involve himself in?
- Brought about, and was judge in, the trial of C. Rabirus for the crime of high treason, which carried the death penalty,
- Rabirus had been part of the body of senators who, with Marius, had been involved in the death of Saturninus and his supporters in 100 BC,
- This was clearly a show trial; it occurred thirty-seven years after the event,
- Rabirus’ guilt was not in doubt; it was a test case for the validity of the SCU,
- The trial was ultimately abandoned, maybe at Caesar’s direction, but not before the SCU as a political tool had been brought into question.
What bill proposed did Caesar reportedly support?
- A bill arguing for restoring the political rights of children of those proscribed under Sulla.
What position did Caesar run for in 63?
- Late in 63, Caesar stood for the position of chief priest, pontifex maximus, an honorary position that carried huge prestige,
- The leading optimate Catulus, wanting the position himself, tried to bribe Caesar to stand down,
- In response, Caesar bribed the votes with Crassus’ money (Plutarch, Caesar 7), in so doing Caesar was making a political statement to the optimates that he could buy prestige.
What does Catiline do in 62 BC?
- Sought the consulship of 62,
- Despite rumours of assassination and revolution coming through informers, Catiline was too well connected to be prosecuted,
- He began talking about leading the unfortunate members of society, the miseri,
- Cicero openly challenged him, and that brought about the response known as Catiline’s threat.
What was Catiline’s threat?
‘I see two bodies’ he said, ‘one thin and wasted, but with a head, the other headless, but big and strong. What is there so dreadful about it, if I myself become the head of the body which needs one?’
(Plutarch, Cicero 14)
The inference being that the Senate was weak and the people strong, but lacking a leader.
What did Cicero do during the consular elections for 62?
- As consul he presided over the consular elections,
- He wore a breastplate and had an extensive bodyguard detail of young nobles, a piece of theatre emphasising the danger that Catiline was supposed to pose,
- Catiline failed to get elected once more.
What did Catiline do after, once again, failing to be elected as consul?
- He dispatched men to raise troops in the countryside,
- Chief among these was C. Manlius, who was sent to mobilise forces in Etruria,
- There were also plans for fire-starting in the city and seizing strategic points with armed men.
How did the Senate respond to Catiline’s revolutionary actions?
- On receipt of letters warning prominent popularis figures of planned massacres, the Senate passed the SCU,
- Troops were dispatched against Manlius and to other areas of Italy where there was unrest,
- Of the support that Catiline engendered, it was the military forces, the veterans, that seemed most formidable.
What did Catiline do on 6th November 63 BC?
- There was a meeting of conspirators,
- Here, Catiline encouraged some to kill Cicero at home when he took the morning greeting the next day,
- Cicero thus firmly had enough evidence to denounce Catiline.
What did Cicero do 8th November 63 BC? What did this result in?
- Delivered the first of four speeches against Catiline,
- Defiantly, Catiline attempted to defend himself but he was shouted down,
- Catiline left the city ostensibly for exile in Massalia, but actually joined with Manlius in Etruria.
What did Cicero do after Catiline’s escape from Rome?
- Delivered his second speech against Catiline before the people in the forum,
- He made a case for Catiline’s followers being the worst members of society,
- He put them in six classes ordered by increasing disdain (Cicero, In Catilinam II 17-23),
- The worst group of all was made up of Catiline’s friends.
What does Cicero write/say of Catiline’s closest supporters?
‘They devote their whole lives and all of their waking hours to the vast labour of banqueting all night long. In this herd is found the gambler and adulterer, and all the filth of Rome. These charming and refined lads have learnt not only to make love and to suffer it, to dance and sing, but also to murder with dagger or poison.’
Cicero, In Catilinam II.22-23
What does Sallust recreate that shows Catiline’s motivation?
- Reproduces a letter (Bellum Catilinae 35) from Catiline himself to the optimate Catulus, where he complains that he has been robbed of his just desserts, and that it is only the selfishness of a few powerful individuals that hs pushed him into taking to the field,
- He wraps up his justification up in a case of supporting the miseri; but the tone of the letter, rather like the speech to his political supports (Bell Cat, 20), is all about missed opportunity and honour slighted,
- Catiline was as selfish as those he denounced; he started a revolution because he failed as a politician.
What does Sallust write/recreate to show the motivation of the veterans who supported Catiline?
Sallust reproduces a plea from Manlius, Catiline’s general in the field, that shows the motivation of veterans, in which it is clear that debt was a very real issue:
‘For we are wretched and destitute, many of us have been driven from our country by the violence and cruelty of moneylenders, while all have lost repute and fortune. None of us have been allowed, in accordance witrh the usage of out forefathers, to enjoy the protection of the law and retain our personal liberty after being stripped of our patrimony, such was the inhumanity of the moneylenders and the praetor.’
(Catiline Conspiracy, 33)
What Sallust record of the Senate when deciding the fate of the conspirators?
- He writes that an emergency session of the Senate debated the fate of those conspirators arrested at Rome,
- The consul elect D. Iunius Silanus proposed the death penalty,
- All who spoke after agreed until Caesar spoke against the killing of the men,
- His argument was that Rome had laws and the fact that these men had broken them did not mean that the Senate should do the same by executing them without trial,
- Caesar, thus, changed opinion, until the young noble M. Porcius Cato, who traded on the probity of the family name gained from his famous grandfather Cato the sensor, delivered a speech that sealed the fates of the conspirators (Bell Cat, 51-54; Plutarch Caesar 7).
What is worth noting of Sallust’s account of this emergency session?
- Sallust’s report is framed by his admiration for both Caesar and Cato,
- He was a partisan of Caesar’s but also an admirer of Cato’s uprightness, which he saw as a model to challenge what he perceived as the degradation of Roman society,
- In this account, both men come out well.
What writing of Sallust shows his admiration for both Caesar and Cato?
‘… For a long time, as when mothers are exhausted by child-bearing, no one at all produced at Rome who was great in merit. But within my own memory there have appeared two men of towering merit, though of diverse character, Marcus Cato and Gaius Caesar.’
(Catiline Conspiracy 53)
How does Cicero’s account of the debate differ?
- (In Catilinum IV.7-10, 20-2) Cato’s role is written out while Cicero’s is emphasised,
- It is later known from a later letter of Cicero’s that Cato received a great deal of literary praise after the event in a panegyric by Brutus, which may have been Sallust’s source,
- Although Cicero was praised in the immediate aftermath, he would later be attacked for having the conspirators executed without trial (In Catilinam IV.20).
How did Catiline die?
- Died in battle the next year (62).
What can be said of Cicero’s work on the Catiline Conspiracy?
- That he worked up the scale of the threat for his own personal aggrandisement,
- Could be argued that the Catiline Conspiracy was overblown,
- His political supporters were inadequate and the poor were impotent, so that only the veteran forces were effective, although outnumbered.
What positives of Catiline can be posited?
- Even though Catiline worked out of self-interest, Catiline did address some very real social problems; debt was a millstone for many at the time,
- If nothing else, the Catiline Conspiracy showed popularis politicians that armed insurrection would not do; to bring about social change, they would have to subvert the existing system.
