Political Speeches (Oxford World's Classics) (59 page)

Publius Servilius
: Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus, the consul of 79; see note on
Ver
. 2.5.66 above.

Gaius Curio
: Gaius Scribonius Curio, the consul of 76; see note on
Ver
. 18 above.

Gnaeus Lentulus
: Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus, the consul of 72; see third note on
Ver
. 2.5.15 above.

Gaius Cassius
: Gaius Cassius Longinus, the consul of 73. In 72 he was governor of Cisalpine Gaul, where he was defeated by Spartacus.

help in attaining office
: i.e. in attaining the consulship. This is one of Cicero’s more disingenuous sentences.

the career I have been following
: i.e. forensic advocacy.

this high office
: the praetorship.

How far, I ask you
:
Quo usque tandem
, a highly dramatic and effective opening to the speech (and one of the two or three most famous quotations from Latin literature). The expression is used nowhere else by Cicero, but occurs in Sallust (
Cat
. 20.9) in an address given by Catiline to his followers a year before Cicero delivered the
First Catilinarian
. Scholars have debated why Sallust should make Catiline echo the words with which Cicero began his famous denunciation of him. The problem was solved, in my view, by D. A. Malcolm (
CQ
,
NS
29 (1979), 219–20), who proposed that
quo usque tandem
was a demagogic phrase favoured by Catiline, which Cicero then mockingly threw back at him. Sallust would therefore be accurately characterizing Catiline’s language in the speech he attributed to him—and incidentally explaining to his readers the significance of Cicero’s famous words.

what you were up to yesterday evening, what you were up to last night
: scholars are uncertain what the Latin means, and unfortunately the date of the
First Catilinarian
,
Second Catilinarian
(one day after the
First Catilinarian
), and the SCU (eighteen or seventeen days before the
First Catilinarian
, depending on whether Asconius (6 C) has used inclusive reckoning) depend on it. The passage is normally held to mean, ‘what you were up to last night, what you were up to the night before’: in that case, the events of ‘last night’ would be unknown, the events of ‘the night before’ would refer to the meeting at Laeca’s house (since the same phrase is used to refer to it below at §8), the date of the
First Catilinarian
would be 8 November (since we know from Cic.
Sul
. 52 that the meeting at Laeca’s house was on the night of 6–7 November), and Cicero would have delayed twenty-four hours after the assassination attempt on the morning of 7 November before summoning the senate. In our passage, however, it is difficult to see how ‘where you were, whom you collected together, and what plan of action you decided upon’ can apply to two different nights: the conspirators were summoned and plans made, surely, on just one night, that of the meeting at Laeca’s house on6–7 November. I therefore prefer to translate the passage in such a way as to refer to a single night, ‘what you were up to yesterday evening, what you were up to last night’, and allow Cicero to say the same thing twice over
for rhetorical effect (as he commonly does, by the figure known as ‘pleonasm’). It is possible that different times of the same night are being described, as was suggested by T. Crane (
CJ
61 (1965–6), 264–7). If we accept that Cicero is referring to a single night, the date of the
First Catilinarian
becomes 7 November, there is no second night to explain away, and Cicero no longer hesitates for twenty-four hours before summoning the senate. The date of the
Second Catilinarian
accordingly becomes 8 November, and the date of the SCU 20 October (or 21 October if Asconius used inclusive reckoning). Since this is the solution I have adopted, I have translated all references to the meeting at Laeca’s house as ‘last night’ in the
First Catilinarian
and as ‘the night before last’ in the
Second Catilinarian
(studies of the relevant Latin terms suggest that their meaning varied according to the context—hence the uncertainty).

Publius Scipio … killed Tiberius Gracchus
: Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was the tribune of 133
BC
whose controversial agrarian bill and unprecedented attempt to secure re-election to office led to his murder and that of his supporters at the hands of the
pontifex maximus
Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio (the former consul of 138), in 133. Cicero’s remark below about Gracchus causing a ‘mild disturbance’ is an extreme understatement, and well illustrates Z. Yavetz’s observation that ‘Cicero was extremely tolerant of all dead
populares
’ (
Historia
, 12 (1963), 493). Similar understatement is used at §4 and at
Cat
. 4.13.

Gaius Servilius Ahala … killed Spurius Maelius
: Maelius was a wealthy plebeian who used his own means to relieve a corn shortage in 439
BC
, was suspected of aiming at tyranny, and was killed by Ahala.

a decree of the senate
: the SCU, although it was passed in response to Manlius’ rising, and not specifically against Catiline.

the consul Lucius Opimius … came to no harm
: in 121
BC
the consul Opimius secured the passage of the first-ever SCU (the wording of which Cicero quotes here; it mentions only one consul because the other one, Quintus Fabius Maximus, was away in Gaul fighting the Allobroges). He then immediately proceeded to massacre the supporters of the reformer Gaius Sempronius Gracchus (the tribune of 123 and 122, and younger brother of Tiberius); Gracchus himself committed suicide to avoid capture. (Gracchus’ father, mentioned below, was Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, consul in 177 and 163 and censor in 169, and his maternal grandfather was Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Hannibal (202), consul in 205 and 194, and censor in 199.) Marcus Fulvius Flaccus, the consul of 125, and his two sons were among the 3,000 Gracchans who lost their lives (see first note on
Cat
. 4.13 below).

A similar senatorial decree … Lucius Valerius
: when the SCU was passed for the second ever time in 100
BC
, the consuls Gaius Marius and Lucius Valerius Flaccus took action against the violent activities of Marius’
former allies the tribune Lucius Appuleius Saturninus and the praetor Gaius Servilius Glaucia, both of whom were seeking further office for 99. Saturninus had been elected to his third tribunate (after 103 and 100), and Glaucia was standing for the consulship (illegally, so soon after the praetorship); on election day, Saturninus’ men murdered Glaucia’s principal rival, Gaius Memmius. Marius shut Saturninus and his supporters inside the senate-house, hoping to save their lives; but the people broke through the roof and stoned them to death with the roof-tiles. Glaucia was captured and killed in a separate incident.

for twenty days now
: Asconius (6 C) claims that this is a round figure, and that it was in fact only eighteen days since the SCU had been passed. He says that it was Cicero’s regular practice in his speeches to talk in round figures.

my only wish is to be compassionate
: passages like this are often suspected of having been added after the event, since at the time when Cicero spoke the conspirators had not yet been executed. (I translate
clemens
as ‘compassionate’ in the
Catilinarians
, but prefer to render
clementia
as ‘clemency’ in the very different context of
Pro Marcello
.)

Praeneste
: in the hills 20 miles south-east of Rome. It had been a Marian stronghold; Sulla sacked it in 82 and settled a colony of his veterans there.

Marcus Laeca
: Marcus Porcius Laeca, a senator (his career is unknown), chiefly remembered as the owner of the house where the meeting of the conspirators took place on the night of 6–7 November. He was convicted and went into exile in 62.

I am not even wounding … with my words
: because he has not named them.

Two Roman equestrians
: Gaius Cornelius and Lucius Vargunteius.

Jupiter Stator
: Jupiter the Stayer (of troops in battle); he was said to have stayed the flight of Romulus’ army from the Sabines at the point where the temple was later built (in an uncertain location close to the Palatine). The senate was meeting in this temple (we know of no other occasion when it met there); we should imagine Cicero as turning towards the statue of the god. On the significance of the choice of venue, see A. Vasaly,
Representations: Images of the World in Ciceronian Oratory
(Berkeley etc., 1993), 41–59.

the last consular elections
: in July 63.

Or again … with yet another that is quite incredible?
: Cicero alleges that Catiline murdered his penultimate wife in order to secure his marriage to his last wife, Aurelia Orestilla (who in
In toga candida
(Asc. 91 C) he goes so far as to claim was actually Catiline’s daughter). He then alludes to a further, unspecified crime, explained by Sallust (
Cat
. 15.2) and later authors: that Catiline also murdered his own son, again in order to facilitate his marriage to Orestilla. The brevity with which Cicero touches
upon these mysterious allegations is a sure sign that they could not be substantiated. Nevertheless, they were repeated and enlarged upon by later authors with relish.

on the 13th of this month
: literally, ‘on the coming Ides’—the Ides being the 13th or the 15th day of the month (depending on the month), and the day on which debtors were required to pay interest.

Can this light of day … the good luck of the Roman people?
: this allegation is one of the bases of the myth of the ‘first Catilinarian conspiracy’ (the only such basis in the
Catilinarians
, in fact—one indication that it is indeed a myth). The reference to Catiline appearing armed in the place of assembly (
comitium
) in front of the senate-house on the last day (29th) of December 66 (the consulship of Manius Aemilius Lepidus and Lucius Volcacius Tullus) appears to have the status of a historical fact. But the statement that his purpose was to kill the consuls and other prominent men can be no more than a conjecture, since no one was attacked, or prosecuted afterwards. It is hard to see why Catiline might have wanted to kill outgoing consuls; but if Cicero is referring to the incoming ones (who would not, however, enter office until 1 January), the statement is even less plausible, because one of them, Lucius Manlius Torquatus, went on to support Catiline at his extortion trial in 65 (a difficulty Cicero attempts to explain away at
Sul
. 81). Catiline’s appearance in the forum can more plausibly be explained as being connected in some way with the impending trial of Gaius Manilius for extortion.

left the area of benches … you took your seat
: see third note on
Cat
. 4.3 below.

while escaping punishment and remaining free
: a reference to two occasions when Catiline was acquitted in court: in 64, when he had been charged with murders committed during the Sullan proscriptions, and in 65, when he had been charged with extortion committed while he was governor of Africa.

Manius Lepidus’ house
: Manius Aemilius Lepidus, the consul of 66 and a fellow patrician. Catiline had made the offer only a few days previously, when Lucius Aemilius Paullus had threatened to prosecute him for violence.

Quintus Metellus
: Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer, the praetor who had been assigned the governorship of Cisalpine Gaul for 62, and who was to block off Catiline’s escape before the battle of Pistoria. He afterwards became consul in 60.

Marcus Metellus
: the identity of this man is unknown, but he may be Marcus Caecilius Metellus, the praetor of 69 (on whom see second note on
Ver
. 21 above). Cicero treats him as a friend of Catiline’s who could not be trusted to keep him under guard.

it would not be my practice to do so
: more to the point, it would not be within the senate’s powers to order a citizen into exile.

Publius Sestius
: one of the quaestors, attached to the staff of Antonius. He helped Cicero at Capua, returned to Rome, and then joined Antonius against Catiline in Etruria. As tribune in 57 he opposed Clodius and worked tirelessly for Cicero’s recall from exile, sustaining injuries in the process; in return, Cicero (together with Hortensius and Crassus) secured his unanimous acquittal on a charge of violence the following year. Cicero’s defence,
Pro Sestio
, survives.

Marcus Marcellus
: Marcus Claudius Marcellus, the future consul of 51 and subject of Cicero’s
Pro Marcello
. He had been quaestor in 64.

Forum Aurelium
: a small town near the coast of Etruria, about 60 miles north of Rome on the Via Aurelia (the road to Massilia by which Catiline was to leave Rome).

that silver eagle
: a military standard reputedly used by Marius in the war against the Cimbri in 102–101 (Sal.
Cat
. 59.3).

Those physical powers of yours
: Sallust also comments on Catiline’s physical powers in a passage closely resembling this one, and no doubt based on it (
Cat
. 5.1–5). For Sallust, Catiline’s physical strength would have been a positive quality, had his character not been corrupt; for Cicero, on the other hand, it merely reinforces the impression of brutality. Similar passages occur below at
Cat
. 2.9 and 3.16.

When I prevented you from attaining the consulship
: at the consular elections of July 63, when Cicero deterred Catiline from using violence to secure his election.

the mobilizer of slaves
: Cicero cleverly slips this allegation, which was untrue, into an imaginary speech, rather than have it come directly from himself. See further second note on
Cat
. 4.4 below.