V. Catiline, who has already been spoken of, had twice failed in his designs upon the consulship; he solicited it again for the year 692, without abandoning his plans of conspiracy. The moment seemed favourable. Pompey being in Asia, Italy was bared of troops; Antonius, associated in the plot, shared the consulship with Cicero. Calm existed on the surface, whilst passions, half extinguished, and bruised interests, offered to the first man bold enough, numerous means of raising commotions.[954] The men whom Sylla had despoiled, as well as those he had enriched, but who had dissipated the fruits of their immense plunder, were equally discontented; so that the same idea of subversion formed a bond of union between the victims and the accomplices of the past oppression.
Addicted to excesses of every kind, Catiline dreamed, in the midst of his orgies, of the overthrow of the oligarchy; but we may doubt his desire to put all to fire and sword, as Cicero says, and as most historians have repeated after him. Of illustrious birth, questor in 677, he distinguished himself in Macedonia, in the army of Curio; he had been prætor in 686, and governor of Africa the year following. He was accused of having in his youth imbrued his hands in Sylla’s murders, of having associated with the most infamous men, and of having been guilty of incest and other crimes; there would be no reason for exculpating him if we did not know how prodigal political parties in their triumph are of calumnies against the vanquished. Besides, we must acknowledge that the vices with which he was charged he shared in common with many personages of that epoch, among others with Antonius, the colleague of Cicero, who subsequently undertook his defence. Gifted with a high intelligence and a rare energy, Catiline could not have meditated a thing so insensate as massacre and burning. It would have been to seek to reign over ruins and tombs. The truth will present itself better in the following portrait, traced by Cicero seven years after the death of Catiline, when, returning to a calmer appreciation, the great orator painted in less sombre colours him whom he had so disfigured:—“This Catiline, you cannot have forgotten, I think had, if not the reality, at least the appearance of the greatest virtues. He associated with a crowd of perverse men, but he affected to be devoted to men of greatest estimation. If for him debauchery had powerful attractions, he applied himself with no less ardour to labour and affairs. The fire of passions devoured his heart, but he had also a taste for the labours of war. No, I do not believe there ever existed on this earth a man who offered so monstrous an assemblage of passions and qualities so varied, so contrary, and in continual antagonism with each other.”[955]
The conspiracy, conducted by the adventurous spirit of its chief, had acquired considerable development. Senators, knights, young patricians, a great number of the notable citizens of the allied towns, partook in it. Cicero, informed of these designs, assembles the Senate in the Temple of Concord, and communicates to it the information he had received: he informs it that, on the 5th of the calends of November, a rising was to take place in Etruria; that on the morrow a riot would break out in Rome; that the lives of the consuls were threatened; that, lastly, everywhere stores of warlike arms and attempts to enlist the gladiators indicated the most alarming preparations. Catiline, questioned by the consul, exclaims, that the tyranny of some men, their avarice, their inhumanity, are the true causes of the uneasiness which torments the Republic; then, repelling with scorn the projects of revolt which they imputed to him, he concludes with this threatening figure of speech: “The Roman people is a robust body, but without head: I shall be that head.”[956] He departed with these words, leaving the Senate undecided and trembling. The assembly, meanwhile, passed the usual decree, enjoining the consuls to watch that the Republic received no injury.
The election of consuls for the following year, till then deferred, took place on the 21st of October, 691, and Silanus having been nominated with Murena, Catiline was a third time rejected. He then dispatched to different parts of Italy his agents, and among others, C. Mallius into Etruria, Septimius to the Picenum, and C. Julius into Apulia, to organise the revolt.[957] At the mouth of the Tiber, a division of the fleet, previously employed against the pirates, was ready to second his projects.[958] At Rome even the assassination of Cicero was boldly attempted.
The Senate was convened again on the 8th of November. Catiline dared to attend, and take his seat in the midst of his colleagues. Cicero, in a speech which has become celebrated, apostrophised him in terms of the strongest indignation, and by a crushing denunciation forced him to retire.[959] Catiline, accompanied by three hundred of his adherents, left the capital next morning to join Mallius.[960] During the following days, alarming news arriving from all parts threw Rome into the utmost anxiety. Stupor reigned there. To the animation of fêtes and pleasures had, all of a sudden, succeeded a gloomy silence. Troops were raised; armed outposts were placed at various points; Q. Marcius Rex is dispatched to Fæsulæ (Fiesole); Q. Metellus Creticus into Apulia; Pomponius Rufus to Capua; Q. Metellus Celer into the Picenum; and, lastly, the consul, C. Antonius, led an army into Etruria. Cicero had detached the latter from the conspiracy by giving him the lucrative government of Macedonia.[961] He accepted in exchange that of Gaul, which he also subsequently renounced, not wishing, after his consulship, to quit the city and depart as proconsul. The principal conspirators, at the head of whom were the prætor Lentulus and Cethegus, remained at Rome. They continued energetically the preparations for the insurrection, and entered into communication with the envoys of the Allobroges. Cicero, secretly informed by his spies, among others by Curius, watched their doings, and, when he had indisputable proofs, caused them to be arrested, convoked the Senate, and exposed the plan of the conspiracy.
Lentulus was obliged to resign the prætorship. Out of nine conspirators convicted of the attempt against the Republic, five only failed to escape; they were confided to the custody of the magistrates appointed by the consul. Lentulus was delivered to his kinsman Lentulus Spinther; L. Statilius to Cæsar; Gabinius to Crassus; Cethegus to Cornificius; and Cæparius, who was taken in his flight, to the senator Cn. Terentius.[962] The Senate was on the point of proceeding against them in a manner in which all the forms of justice would have been violated. The criminal judgments were not within its competence, and neither the consul nor the assembly had the right to condemn a Roman citizen without the concurrence of the people. Be that as it may, the senators assembled for a last time on the 5th of December, to deliberate on the punishment of the conspirators; they were less numerous than on the preceding days. Many of them were unwilling to pass sentence of death against citizens belonging to the great patrician families. Some, however, were in favour of capital punishment, in spite of the law Portia. After others had spoken, Cæsar made the following speech, the bearing of which merits particular attention:—
“Conscript fathers, all who deliberate upon doubtful matters ought to be uninfluenced by hatred, affection, anger, or pity. When we are animated by these sentiments, it is hard to unravel the truth; and no one has ever been able to serve at once his passions and his interests. Free your reason of that which beclouds it, and you will be strong; if passion invade your mind and rules it, you will be without strength. It would be here the occasion, conscript fathers, to recall to mind how many kings and peoples, carried away by rage or pity, have taken fatal resolutions; but I prefer reminding you how our ancestors, unswayed by prejudice, performed good and just deeds. In our Macedonian war against King Perseus, the Republic of Rhodes, in its power and pride, although it owed its greatness to the support of the Roman people, proved disloyal and hostile to us; but when, on the termination of this war, the fate of the Rhodians was brought under deliberation, our ancestors left them unpunished in order that no one should ascribe the cause of the war to their riches rather than to their wrongs. So, also, in all the Punic wars, although the Carthaginians had often, both during peace and during the truces, committed perfidious atrocities, our fathers, in spite of the opportunity, never imitated them, because they thought more of their honour than of vengeance, however just.
“And you, conscript fathers, take care that the crime of P. Lentulus and his accomplices overcome not the sentiment of your dignity, and consult not your anger more than your reputation. Indeed, if there be a punishment adequate to their offences, I will approve the new measure; but if, on the contrary, the vastness of the crime exceeds all that can be imagined, we should adhere, I think, to that which has been provided by the laws.
“Most of those who have expressed their opinion before me have deplored in studied and magniloquent terms the misfortune of the Republic; they have recounted the horrors of war and the sufferings of the vanquished, the rapes of young girls and boys, infants torn from the arms of their parents, mothers delivered to the lusts of the vanquisher, the pillage of temples and houses, the carnage and burning everywhere; in short, arms, corpses, blood, and mourning. But, by the immortal gods, to what tend these speeches? To make you detest the conspiracy? What! will he whom a plot so great and so atrocious has not moved, be inflamed by a speech? No, not so; men never consider their personal injuries slight; many men resent them too keenly. But, conscript fathers, that which is permitted to some is not permitted to others. Those who live humbly in obscurity may err by passion, and few people know it; all is equal with them, fame and fortune; but those who, invested with high dignities, pass their life in an exalted sphere, do nothing of which every mortal is not informed. Thus, the higher the fortune the less the liberty; the less we ought to be partial, rancorous, and especially angry. What, in others, is named hastiness, in men of power is called pride and cruelty.
“I think then, conscript fathers, that all the tortures known can never equal the crimes of the conspirators; but, among most mortals, the last impressions are permanent, and the crimes of the greatest culprits are forgotten, to remember only the punishment, if it has been too severe.