[§2].
immo vero is used when the speaker wishes to correct, either by addition or qualification, something that has been said, like the Greek μὲν οὖν. 'Lives, did I say? Nay, he actually comes into the senate.' Cf. [4. 17] 'maxima pars . . . immo vero genus universum.'
publici consilii. Consilium properly = 'deliberation,' 'counsel.' Hence, as here, 'the deliberating body,' a sense which more properly belongs to concilium. Any state-constituted assemblage of persons for deliberation was called 'consilium publicum' (e.g. a board of iudices assembled to try a case at law).
unum quemque nostrum, not 'each one of us,' but 'us, one by one,' 'individually.'
viri fortes, ironical.
si vitemus. The subj. is used in the protasis, because the idea of contingency is contained in 'satisfacere videmur,' which is substituted for the more regular 'satisfaciamus.' Cf. [4. 7] 'habere videtur ista res iniquitatem, si imperare velis,' and [2. 25] 'si contendere velimus, intelligere possumus.'
iussu consulis. The Lex Valeria (see [note on 1. 28]) secured to every citizen the right of appeal to the people against the sentence of a magistrate. On the question whether Cicero was on this occasion legally entitled to put Catilina to death on his own authority, see [Intr. Note B].
[§3].
An vero, etc. Tiberius Gracchus was tribune 133 b.c.. His law for the distribution of the public land roused against him the hatred of the aristocratic party. On the day of the tribunician election for the next year he was attacked and killed with 300 of his adherents by a body of senators headed by Scipio Nasica. Privatus is strongly opposed to consules in the next clause. It appears that Nasica was not actually Pontifex Maximus at the time, but in any case the office was not regarded as a magistracy.
mediocriter labefactantem is similarly contrasted with the more serious designs of Catilina. Cicero here mentions the violent proceedings against the Gracchi and their successors with approval, because he wished to plead for similar measures against Catilina. In another speech delivered during this year (de Lege Agraria 2. 5. 10) he calls them 'amantissimi plebis Romanae viri,' and says, 'Non sum autem is consul, qui, ut plerique, nefas esse arbitrer Gracchos laudare.'