The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 05

by Unknown

The conspiracy thus critically arrested has been represented, in accordance with the evidence before us, as the work of mere private cupidity or ambition. But the ruling party sought to incriminate in it their public adversaries. They had already studied to implicate both Cæsar and Crassus in the presumed machinations of Catiline at an earlier period. They now repeated the effort with increased virulence, and Catulus himself was foremost in urging Cicero to produce testimony against Cæsar. Such testimony might doubtless have been suborned; loose surmises might at least have been construed into grave presumptions. But to such a project the consul steadily refused to lend himself. He was sensible perhaps that Cæsar’s popularity would in fact screen from justice every culprit associated with him, and in giving him the charge of Statilius, one of the criminals, Cicero openly declared himself convinced of his innocence. Indeed the great difficulty was still to be overcome, and the consul would not permit himself recklessly to enhance it. Nine of the conspirators had been denounced, five were convicted and confined; but the nature of their punishment yet remained for decision. The law of the republic, as interpreted at least by the patricians, invested the chief magistrate with power of life and death, on the senate issuing its ultimate decree. On this authority alone bold men had slain presumed criminals, and the senate had loudly applauded them.

But against such a stretch of prerogative the commons had always protested. They had resented such daring deeds, and retaliated them with violence. They had constantly appealed to the principle of Roman law, which forbade any citizen to be put to death except by a vote of the tribes. Nor could the tribes themselves, however sternly disposed, deprive a citizen, as long as he retained his rights as such, of liberty to evade sentence by voluntary exile. To the people, accordingly, Cicero could not venture to appeal, nor would he assume on the other hand the responsibility of acting on the mere decree of his own order. Hitherto, even while defying the spirit of the laws, he had scrupulously adhered to their forms. He had abstained from arresting the conspirators in their own houses, to avoid the violation of a citizen’s domicile. He had not given Lentulus in charge to his lictors; but had led him before the senate with his own hand, because none but a consul might put a prætor under restraint. Finally, he had caused the criminals to be declared perduelles, or public enemies, in order to strip them of the prerogatives of citizenship, before proceeding to their punishment. He now threw himself once more on the senate itself. He restored to the assembly the sword which it had thrust into his hands. The fathers met in the temple of Concord, the ground-plan of which may yet be traced under the brow of the Capitoline, and from the memorials still preserved to us, we may picture to ourselves a vivid representation of the debate which followed. While strong patrols traversed the streets, and the knights armed and in great multitudes surrounded the place of assembly, the consul-designate, Silanus, invited first to deliver his opinion, pronounced boldly for death. All the consulars, successively, followed on the same side. It seemed as if the meeting would have been unanimous, for Crassus had absented himself, and Cæsar, it might be thought, conscious of his own complicity or at least of the suspicions to which he was subjected, would desire to efface the stigma in the blood of the convicted traitors. But he, taking counsel only of his own boldness and spirit, of the claims of his party, and indeed of his own natural clemency, declared in a speech of remarkable power, for perpetual imprisonment, and with confiscation. He allowed indeed that the culprits were justly liable to the extreme penalty; but to free and high-minded men, degradation, he contended, was worse than death, which he dared to characterise as mere oblivion. This speech made a great impression upon the assembly. Those who were next asked their opinion voted one after the other with Cæsar.

Among them was Quintus Cicero, the consul’s own brother; Silanus himself thought fit to explain away the sentiments he had just delivered in accordance with the last speaker. Cicero then rose to stem the current, and demonstrated with all his eloquence the impossibility of stopping at the point recommended by Cæsar after having gone so far, and both offended and alarmed so many dangerous enemies. But this appeal to the fears of the assembly rather increased than allayed their anxiety to escape from the immediate responsibility. Cicero’s real influence with them was never great. A master in the Forum, he was only a minister in the senate. There he was too generally regarded as a mere bustling politician, who used the means put into his hands by others for his own glory or advancement. The senators would have little heeded his counsel, had it not been reinforced by an energetic speech from Cato, who pronounced for the execution of the criminals in a tone of deep conviction and unflinching courage. Once more the audience was swayed round to the side of severity, and Cato’s influence was openly avowed by the language of the fatal decree itself, which was expressed in his own words. The knights, who waited impatiently for the result, were furious at the obstruction Cæsar had thrown in the way of justice, and when he appeared on the steps of the temple could hardly be restrained from assassinating him. Some of the younger senators carried him off in their arms, and among them C. Scribonius Curio was conspicuous for his spirit and courage.

The knights, it was said, had looked to Cicero for the signal to consummate their vengeance; but the consul had turned away. He was giving orders for the immediate execution of the senate’s decree, in order to prevent the interference of the tribunes, or a rescue by main force. He went in person to the house where Lentulus was detained on the Palatine, and brought him to the Tullianum, the prison under the Capitol, whither the prætors at the same time conducted the other criminals. The executioners were at hand. Lentulus was strangled first, and Cethegus, Gabinius, Statilius, and Ceparius suffered the same fate successively. When the consul, who had attended to the last, traversed the Forum on his route homeward, he exclaimed to the crowds through which he made his way, “They have lived,” and the people shuddered in silence.

Base of a Roman Column

Cicero had performed, as he well knew, an action, the fame of which must resound through all ages, and for the moment the head of the aspiring Arpinate swam with the conviction that his name was now linked indissolubly with the greatest crisis in the history of Rome. The execution took place on the 5th of December [Feb. 7th, 62] and he had yet another month of office before him, and Catiline was in arms in Etruria. While he turned from the contemplation of his own glory to finish his work, the nobles could dwell with grim satisfaction on an exploit, which proved, as they conceived, to them that they could defend themselves henceforth without the aid of a military chief. The patron they suspected and feared had withdrawn from their presence to collect his forces and assail their prerogative from a distance. He had left them exposed to the attacks of the Marians, whose courage had revived in his absence. But, trusting in themselves alone, they had checked opposition, crushed sedition, and strangled revolution. Should the survivors appeal, on his return to Pompey, they at once threw down the gauntlet and defied the commander of their own legions. We shall see how rash their hot-brained courage was, and how soon they cooled in the presence of the avenger whom they had evoked. But those among them who already apprehended his calling them to account, were prepared at least to make a sacrifice of Cicero, assured that he would accept the victim and pardon the offence.

The successes of the generals of the senate had doubtless inspired Cicero with confidence to accomplish the act, which he regarded as the eternal glory of his consulate, and the salvation of his country. The presence of the troops of the republic had repressed the movements of insurrection in every quarter. In Etruria alone was the resistance serious and obstinate. Cicero had purchased the co-operation of his colleague Antonius, whose vacillation had given confidence to the conspirators, by ceding to him the province of Macedonia. He had placed him at the head of the troops destined to act against Catiline in person; but he had furnished him with firmer and more faithful lieutenants in Sextius and Petreius. While this army covered Rome, another under Metellus occupied the Cisalpine, and cut off the rebel’s communications with his Gallic allies. Catiline had assembled twenty thousand men, but only one-quarter of this number were regularly equipped. Menaced both in front and rear he turned alternately from the one opponent to the other, and was trying to shake the loyalty of Antonius, when the news of the death of his associates threw him into despair. He was now assured that the senate would never retreat from its position, and even the gaining of Antonius could only postpone by a few days the ruin which must eventually overwhelm him. His men too deserted from him by whole cohorts, and he soon found himself at the head of no more than four thousand followers. He attempted to penetrate the Apennines, and evading the forces of Metellus, gain the Alps and excite an insurrection in Gaul. But the defiles were closed against him, and again he threw himself on Antonius. The consul himself affected sickness and entrusted his legions to Petreius. The armies met not far from Pistoria.[b]

Catiline, when he saw that he was surrounded by mountains and by hostile forces, that his schemes in the city had been unsuccessful, and that there was no hope either of escape or of succour, thinking it best, in such circumstances, to try the fortune of a battle, resolved upon engaging as speedily as possible with Antonius. Having, therefore, assembled his troops, he addressed them in the following manner:

“I am well aware, soldiers, that words cannot inspire courage; and that a spiritless army cannot be rendered active, or a timid army valiant, by the speech of its commander. Whatever courage is in the heart of a man, whether from nature or from habit, so much will be shown by him in the field; and on him whom neither glory nor danger can move, exhortation is bestowed in vain; for the terror in his breast stops his ears.