Was Julius Caesar the real Jesus Christ?

[Laura]

CICERO REJECTS REFORM

A group of tribunes-elect, other magistrates about to take office, the consul-elect Antonius, and probably Caesar, Crassus and Catiline, got together and drafted a comprehensive agrarian bill. When Cicero heard about these meetings, he asked to participate declaring that “if the law seemed… likely to be useful to the Roman plebeians [he] would support and help to pass it.” The drafters of the bill rejected his request with the comment that it was certain that he “could never be brought to approve any kind of largess” to the Roman people. There were over 40 clauses in the bill that attended meticulously to detail and provided a wide program of social reform. It granted allotments of public land to the landless poor, war veterans which would have served to solve the problems of hordes of indigent people crowding Rome as well as reconstitute the middle class which had all but disappeared as a result of endless wars and the consequences of same already described. The bill anticipated all objections and covered them fairly. It was comprehensive and rational which reveals that its main author must have been Caesar because it was a forerunner of legislation he would promote and pass in the future. The bill was advantageous to so many elements of the citizenry of Rome, and to Pompey as well, who had been agitating for land for his soldiers, thus, it would have been expected that Cicero would not unilaterally oppose it. However, in his inaugural address to the Senate and in two subsequent speeches in the Forum, Cicero not only exposed his attitude toward the bill at hand, but also the political line he was going to pursue during his year in office. One suspects that Caesar and his group certainly did not expect to pass this bill, but rather to expose Cicero so that they could take his measure and formulate further strategies.

Cicero not only rejected the bill unequivocally, he found no part of it worth salvaging. He offered no constructive criticism, no suggestions or ideas about how to solve any of Rome’s problems, just a big, flat, “no way”. His speeches reveal that he was so overjoyed, so over the moon, about finally being accepted into the boys club that had for so long kept the “Keep Out –Klub Members Only!” sign on the door of their tree-house, that he actually believed that it was all about him and him alone! He declared that with the backing of his clique he was going to rally all men of property behind him and was going to persuade them all to return to reason, i.e. the way the senate wanted things done. As Kahn notes, “Cicero delivered himself over to his mentors without reservation and committed himself with the passion of a new believer to their credo: “Let no innovation be made contrary to usage and the principles of our forefathers” – a credo that he had mocked only three years earlier. His new self-image was as the spokesman for the tiny controlling clique within the senate. He was now going to defend them from subversion. He was so impressed with himself and the grandeur of his mission that he actually began to present it in terms of a battle between the forces of good and evil, light and darkness!

Cicero’s speeches against the land bill are truly amazing examples of hyperbolic obfuscation, shameless twisting and distortion of facts, shameless disregard of humanity and principles, and models of reactionary oratory. The can be (and have been) used by elitists of any era who are desirous of repressing and suppressing efforts to alleviate social misery. Cicero made it plain that his new “friends” would not be granting redress to the desperate hordes, they would not yield an inch to anyone challenging their absolute authority and right to rule, and certainly would not allow any reforms that might have prolonged their outdated hegemony that was about to fall due to this very attitude. “Like entrenched oligarchs of every other era, they fixed their eyes on an illusory past and preferred repression of discontent and eventual overthrow to slow retreat with dignity preserved.” (Kahn)

CICERO: MASTER OF AD HOMINEM ATTACKS

The most common elements of Cicero’s speeches on this topic were ad hominem attacks, well known to be the standard for all crusaders against subversion (which is why it is so astonishing to see McCarthy on the list of Wikipedia’s demagogues, but not Cicero! Cicero wrote the book!) Cicero singled out Rullus, the tribune who presented the bill, who was known to be something of a bumbling speaker:

As soon as he was elected he practiced putting on a different expression, a different tone of voice and a different gait; his clothes were in rags, his person was terribly neglected, more hair about him now and more beard, so that eyes and aspect seemed to protest to the world the tribunician power and to threaten the republic.

Cicero then portrayed the land reformers as “enemies of Pompey” (trying to appeal to Pompey’s supporters). Representing himself as Pompey’s representative he declared “Pompeius rejects Rullus’ offer.” Unfortunately, he did not elaborate any alternative land offer for the warlord’s veterans and this would come back to bite Cicero soon enough.

Cicero charged that the reform bill was a blind for “pernicious designs by nefarious men” seeking “royal power.” Resorting to his “battle between good and evil” theme, he declared that the authors of the bill had “given hope to the wicked and inspired the good with fear.” But never fear! Cicero, the champion of righteousness was on hand to repel the powers of darkness just like a divine redeemer. He actually said:

In the midst of this confusion and disturbance of men’s minds and affairs… the voice and authority of a consul has suddenly brought light into utter darkness for the Roman people.

Oh yeah. But wait, there’s even more! This one is going to crumble your cookies: Cicero declared that there was no longer any enemies on the outside since Pompey was on the job over there in Asia stomping on the provincials so they would cough up everything they owned. No, indeed, “the evil [was] confined within [the] gates, it [was] internal and domestic.” He warned darkly of civil war.

The republic when it was handed over to me was full of anxiety, full of fear… All kinds of seditious plots against the present from of government and against your quiet were reported to be already in progress, some to have been entered on the moment we were elected consuls.

Cicero clearly had it in his mind that he was single-handedly going to quell any request from any little kid named Oliver asking for more, for all time to come. If a person reads Cicero with full awareness of what was really going on all around and through the empire, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the guy was stark, raving mad. He was delusional. He had been rejected by the cool kids all his life and now that they had let him come over to play, his lifetime of fantasies of what it would be like to be a “cool kid” just simply took over his mind completely. Either that, or he was a closet psychopath all his life and only when he became consul, the acme of his power aspirations, did he allow his true nature to manifest itself.

When he made speeches in the forum where there were many listeners who wanted agrarian reform and favored the bill, he didn’t dismiss the bill as arbitrarily as he did in the senate. Instead, he accepted the principle that agrarian reform was certainly needed, but then turned around and impugned the motives of the reformers. In the time honored tradition of oligarchs and ruling minorities, he asked “What were the actual intentions of those promising land reform to the Roman people?” They were, he declared, “darkly engineering something different.” On this basis, Cicero also warned his listeners that he would consider any proposals to mitigate misery and despair as evidence of revolutionary tendencies!

He declared that, as “the people’s consul”, he did not “disapprove of every kind of agrarian law in itself.” Then his hypocrisy vaulted he praised the Gracchi:

…the most illustrious citizens, the most able and the most devoted friends of the Roman people, Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, settled plebeians in public lands.

According to Cicero, unlike the Gracchi, the drafters of the Rullan bill were not concerned with the people’s welfare because they “assembled privately… in darkness and solitude… in secret meetings” and their purpose was not to benefit the people but to gain control “of the treasury, the revenues, all the provinces and the entire republic, of friendly kingdoms, of free nations.”

Wow! All that from a program of social reform. Sound familiar?

In his private correspondence, Cicero expressed the opinion that the murder of the Gracchi and the massacre of their supporters by the senate was “justifiable.”

 

[Laura]

CICERO’S WAR BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL

For the remainder of his consulship, Cicero continued to define the problem in his hyperbolic demagogic way as a war between good and evil. He could never see that the problem was that measures were needed to resolve a crisis of the republic which had outgrown the city-state model of “got to war, get plunder to bring home, close the gates and enjoy.” This allegedly great orator, this model Roman advocate for “freedom and democracy”, never once said any words in all his orations and writings about the problems of the homeless, the economic crises of the debts people were forced to shoulder just to survive, the jobless, the disenfranchised, or the starving multitude. Not a word. Ever. What was worse was that any proponents of reform designed to alleviate these problems were denounced as dangerous conspirators prepared “to throw the government into confusion by seditious speeches, by turbulent decrees of the senate, by unjust exercise of authority and to seek some excuse for revolution.” In other words, Cicero and his coterie left no choice to those who were suffering under oppression: their only choices were riots and rebellion. By repression all attempts at reform, Cicero and his colleagues only made the situation dire and desperate.

Kahn writes that “in Cicero, Caesar and his associates faced a cunning and eloquent foe. Caesar would have to exert all his genius in political maneuvering to counter the anti-subversive campaign.” Caesar had heard all the slogans before: “the plot against liberty,” Pernicious designs of nefarious citizens” and “seditious plots against the present form of government.” All of these and much more had been trotted out and marshaled against previous reformers: the Gracchi, Saturninus, Drusus, Sulpicius, Marius and a series of radical tribunes. Some of them had been assassinated, some had been exiled. Followers had been massacred.

Caesar could see where Cicero was going. With his warnings against “passionate men, always disposed for violence, ready for revolution, “ and his declaration that it was his “duty as consul to exercise the most serious care and attention in protecting the republic” , his reprimands to tribunes “not to stir up sedition during ‘[his] consulship,” Cicero was clearly moving the political action toward an invocation of the Senatus consultum ultimum (SCU), or declaration of martial law and the handing over of absolute power to the consul. This act suspended the rights of the citizens and made it possible for a consul to summarily execute citizens who were deprived of the right of appeal to the assembly of the people. The issue of the legality of this decree was a contentious one. Just a year earlier, Caesar, being assigned to sit as president of a court trying homicides, had issued a ruling that invalidated the preemptive amnesty for crimes committed during the Sullan Terror. In this act, he was making a statement and issuing a warning to those who might contemplate future “cleansings” of political opponents.

At the moment, however, with Cicero in the driver’s seat increasing the hysteria of the people, Caesar apparently realized that he could say nothing because any declaration for the reinforcement of constitutional rights would be denounced as a cover for conspiracy. Instead, Caesar and his friends came up with a brilliant plan to deliver a message and get people to think.

 

[Laura]

V: CAESAR ENTERS, STAGE LEFT
THE TRIAL OF GAIUS RABIRIUS

The last time the SCU had been invoked it was to sanction a mass slaughter of an advocate of reform, the tribune Saturninus, and his followers. The oligarchs were aware that the very name of the murdered tribune could inflame the masses. Saturninus and his followers were awaiting trial when a group of aristocrats climbed onto the roof of the building in which they were held, stripped off the tiles, and stoned all of them to death. So, Caesar and friend of his, Labienus, who was nephew to one of those slain with Saturninus, came up with the plan to charge an elderly, depraved senator, Rabirius, who had been involved in the affair, with murder. In doing so, they were bringing up in a court of law the issues of the inviolability of tribunes and of the right of appeal to the people in capital cases.

Realizing that it was problematical to argue for the rights of appeal via the people’s tribunes, Caesar devised a plan: to draw attention to the antiquity of the constitutional guarantees involved, and to prevent the optimates from monopolizing “tradition” to their own uses, Caesar and Labienus revived the ancient procedure instituted six centuries earlier by King Tullus in the trial of Horatius who had murdered his sister.

According to the ancient legend, When the victorious Horatius returned carrying the spoils of victory, his sister cried out in grief because she realized her brother had killed the man to whom she had been engaged. Then Horatius killed his sister, proclaiming, "So perish any Roman woman who mourns the enemy." For the murder, he was condemned to death but, with the permission of King Tullus Hostilius, Horatius appealed to the assembly of the people. Persuaded by his father's arguments that he was a hero who should not die childless, the people acquitted Horatius. So there was a second line of descent of the right of appeal to the people in capital cases and it was this principle that Caesar intended to dramatize.

A praetor substituted for the authority of the king and appointed as the two judges of the case Caesar’s clansman, Lucius Caesar and Caesar himself. They followed the ancient procedure to the letter, setting up a cross on the Campus Martius and preparing for the scourging of Rabirius before crucifying him. Caesar pronounced the ancient formula: “Gaius Rabirius, I adjudge you a traitor; go, lictor, bind his hands, veil his head, hang him to the tree of shame.”

According to the legend, as the lictor approached Horatius with the rope to bind him, he shouted “Provoco!” (“I appeal!”) He was then tried before the assembly of the people and was acquitted.

So, as Caesar’s lictor approached Rabirius, he naturally cried “Provoco!” This meant that there would be a new trial before the assembled people. Do you see the brilliance of the maneuver? Caesar is putting the government in the position of having to argue in court FOR the constitutional rights of Rabirius who, with his gang of senatorial thugs, denied those rights to Saturninus and his followers. Not only that, but by utilizing the Saturninus’ case, the forum was filled with elderly former followers along with members of the recently dissolved collegia and all the disgruntled citizens who were assembling in hopes of having a chance to vent their fury at the nobles.

For the trial, the senatorial clique assigned their best orators, the peacockish Hortensius, and Cicero. The rules were that there would be a half-hour limit on the speeches. Cicero knew that he couldn’t weave a spell of obfuscation in half an hour and, since he could not come up with a single virtue in the defendant to use in his defense, he used the “subversion” ploy again. He declared that the trial was nothing less than “an attempt to abolish from the constitution that chief support of our imperial dignity handed down to us by our forefathers [the SCU] to make the authority of the Senate, the power of the consuls, the concerted action of good citizens impotent henceforward to combat the curse and bane of our country, which in the process of overturning these institutions, has prompted this attack upon my client.” He then encouraged all good citizens to “block all approaches to revolution.”

To defend Rabirius against execution, Cicero had to support the right of provocation which had been renewed in a bill passed after the extrajudicial murder of Tiberius Gracchus, another tribune. Cicero said “Gaius Gracchus carried a law forbidding sentence to be passed on the life of a Roman citizen without your consent.” Cicero became so rattled at having to defend the very law that he sought to overturn that he lost his cool and snapped: “Would that my case gave me the chance to proclaim that my client’s was the hand that struck down that public enemy, Saturninus!” It was very bad timing to shift from praising the law of civilized justice to praising an extrajudicial murder. Members of the audience booed.

But Cicero was not one to be nonplussed in such a situation and he regained his balance quickly employing another tactic of demagoguery: pretending that those who were silent were approving of his words. He declaimed:

The outcry I hear does not perturb me… it consoles me, for it shows that there are some uninstructed citizens but not many.

He then made it clear that his words were for the “instructed” or the “good people”, and began to attack Labienus for displaying a portrait of the murdered Saturninus in the court. He reminded the audience that, after his murder, Saturninus had been branded a “worthless citizen unfit to remain in the citizen body” and anyone who, “by keeping the portrait of a man whose sedition made him a public enemy, either did honor to his death or by exciting the pity of the uninstructed caused them to regret him or showed an inclination on his own part to imitate such villainy.” The implication was obvious: Labienus was guilty by association.

Then Cicero got down to the point: he, too, would be in favor of another massacre of just this kind if presented with the situation with, however, some significant twists. He neglected to mention that Saturninus had been granted the right of a fair trial, but it was the small clique in the senate that had incited their followers to climb on the roof and stone those who were trusting in the protection of the consul, Marius. In short, Cicero was re-writing history, another tactic of the demagogue.

At this moment, when Cicero was declaring himself ready to extra-judicially murder citizens, the attention of all was attracted to the lowering of the flag on top of the Janiculum hill which, according to tradition, was the signal of the approach of an enemy and all public business must cease in order to prepare to defend. This signal was the climax of the drama engineered by Caesar and his friends: the praetor Metellus Celer, Pompey’s brother-in-law who hated Cicero, had caused the adjournment of the trial by this ancient method. Caesar and Labienus had gotten what they wanted: they had induced Cicero to reveal himself, to acknowledge the law of provocation and his own intention to violate it. Cicero had also revealed that he was willing to put to death not just those who were accused of armed rebellion, but also those who advocated reforms and to pronounce as guilty those who merely possessed images of a popular hero. The message was clear: Cicero was the enemy.

To keep Cicero busy and off balance, Caesar and his friends filed more lawsuits that induced the egomaniacal consul to make more statements and claims that would damn him in the eyes of Pompey whose favor he had always been anxious to curry. Caesar, for his part, was sure to prosecute Pompey’s foes. Meanwhile, the tribunes were busy promoting reform legislation of various kinds, all of which they expected to be refused or vetoed, but the point was to make the chasm between the optimate clique and the majority of the Roman peoples sharp and clear.

 

[Laura]

PONTIFEX MAXIMUS

In the midst of all this, the supreme priest of the college of priests, Metellus Pius, died and the position of Pontifex Maxiumus was open. Labienus posted a bill to revive the procedure for popular election of the priests which passed. All of Rome was astounded when Caesar entered his name as candidate for this office. By doing so, he was giving the people the opportunity to express themselves clearly and unequivocally against the clique and Cicero. And they did. It turned out that Caesar had gotten more votes than both of the two other optimate candidates combined, including the majority of votes from their own tribes where they would have expected full support! The citizens, the aristocrats, and the commons had all rallied to Caesar and expressed their support in this way. It was a spectacular victory, totally unsettling to Cicero and the senatorial clique revealing the fact that the Sullan party had almost no real support even if, at the moment, they held the reins of power through their creature, Cicero.

The senate and Cicero weren’t really worried about Caesar, however, since in their minds, he was just an annoying upstart. They knew very well that nobody had ever challenged them and survived it without an army at his back. For them, Pompey was the great danger. What if he returned with his army and decided to do what Sulla had done only not on behalf of the Sullan partisans? What if he used his army to back up demands for reform? Oh, the horror! What was worse, word was received that Pompey would soon return and the senatorial clique had only months to sort things out, cement their power, eliminate their enemies, and prepare to receive Pompey.

Meanwhile, Catilina and innumerable fellow-citizens shared the problem of bankruptcy and disgrace. Sallust wrote about such men:

Ever since the state fell under the jurisdiction and sway of a few powerful men, it is always to them that kings and potentates are tributary and peoples and nations pay taxes. All the rest of us, energetic, able, nobles and commons, have made up the mob without influence, without weight, and subservient to those to whom in a free state we should be an object of fear. Because of this, all influence, power, rank and wealth are in their hands or wherever they wish them to be; to us they have left danger, defeat, prosecutions and poverty.

And so, having been thwarted three years in a row for the consulship, Catilina entered his candidacy again. Caesar and Crassus had to decide whether or not to support him. The problem with Catilina was that he was impetuous and without personal restraint; he was overly proud and unreceptive to advice; in short, a loose cannon that would rock the boat. He would defy the clique openly, drive them to extreme actions, and his possibility of winning was thereby seriously compromised.

CATAPULTING THE CICERONIAN PROPAGANDA

To Cicero and the clique, Catilina as a candidate was a problem. He could very well mobilize a popular coalition that would be difficult, if not impossible, to suppress. However, if he did arouse such a rebellion, it would be the perfect opportunity to crush and destroy it once and for all. They obviously liked this latter idea very much; it was right in keeping with the subversion and conspiracies that Cicero had been harping on for a whole year, a conspiracy not just to promote reforms, but to advocate an entire new order of things with massive redistribution of wealth and property and the overthrow of the existing power group in favor of a new one. With the possibility of such a threat, Cicero’s imagination went wild. He saw himself mobilizing all “good” citizens into a coalition that would stalwartly defend “law and order” with himself, of course, as the heroic “Horatius at the Bridge”.

Did Cicero actually believe this nonsense or was he evil to the core? Or maybe that is the wrong way to put it: perhaps if he believed it, that was the demonstration of the twisted nature of his thinking. In any event, Cicero at once declared that Catilina’s candidacy was a threat to the commonwealth which increased the frenzy and hysteria of the electoral campaign.

Now, recall that in the previous election, a bill had been passed limiting the size of the entourage of the candidates. At this point, all the candidates except the candidate backed by the righteous Cato, ignored the restriction. The candidates erected grandstands and held banquets, distributed tickets to the circus, and basically, jam packed the forum. What was worse, in the eyes of Cicero and his handlers, was that Catilina was, apparently, the most popular candidate. All the suppressed, repressed, thwarted, downtrodden, saw Catilina as their champion. It was not just the freedmen who had been denied full citizenship, or the potential beneficiaries of the defeated land bill, or the debtors who failed to obtain relief, or the children of those proscribed by Sulla who had lost their inheritance, or the bankrupt aristocrats, it was also men and women of the aristocratic orders who had conscience and believed fervently that the commonwealth was responsible for the welfare of ALL its citizens, and that happy and productive citizens were good for the entire empire. Additionally, there were women of talent and power who had been agitating for rights to express themselves in ways that had been forbidden to women for centuries. Finally, there were the veterans of Sulla’s army flocking to the banner of Catilina; this was what Cicero needed to confirm his belief in a grand conspiracy. Nothing frightened Cicero and his clique more than a coalition of soldiers and farmers.

What did Cicero do? Another stupid thing. He and his gang of seven forced through the authorization of a triumph for the general, Lucullus, who had been replaced by Pompey. Pompey’s supporters in Rome had blocked this request for acknowledgement of his military prowess for three years, ever since he had returned from the East due to the fact that his soldiers had mutinied and he did not finish the war. This mutiny has been blamed on Publius Clodius Pulcher acting in the interests of Pompey (which we will discuss further on). In 66 BC with the majority of Lucullus' troops openly refusing to obey his commands, but agreeing to defend Roman positions from attack, the senate sent Pompey to take over Lucullus' command at which point Lucullus returned to Rome. In this period Lucullus was forced to reside outside the pomerium, which curtailed his involvement in day to day politics centred on the Forum. His request for a triumph had been rejected for three years and now it was granted.

A Roman triumph was a strange thing to the modern mind – at least to me. It consisted, essentially, in having a military leader and his army process through Rome displaying all their booty, prisoners, and whatever else they could throw in there in the form of parade-style entertainment. At the end of the parade, there would be sacrifices of many animals which were then barbecued as best as I can figure out, and often the final disposition of their prisoners who had been cooling their heels all during the time that the army was waiting outside Rome for permission to enter and dance in the streets, more or less. This “final disposition” usually involved some kind of nasty execution that may or may not have been accomplished in public for the delight of the crowds. Obviously, a “triumph” was a great opportunity for self-promotion and were notoriously competitive affairs. The triumph is considered a characteristically Roman ceremony which represented Roman wealth, power and grandeur, and has been consciously imitated by medieval and later states in the royal entry and other ceremonial events.

In the Roman Republican era, the award of a triumph was determined entirely by the Senate. The general should hold prior power of imperium as dictator, consul, or a praetor. His army should have won a significant victory over a foreign enemy and killed at least 5,000 enemy troops. He should have been acclaimed as imperator by his troops in the field, and his victory should be so complete that he could bring his army home to testify his victory. Generals who did not meet the full requirement for a triumph might be awarded an ovation, in which the general entered the city on foot, wearing a wreath of Venus's myrtle rather than Jupiter's laurel. and was not accompanied by his army.. No complete or clear records of any single triumphal ceremony have survived, so most attempted reconstructions presume a traditional, conservative framework, in which details omitted from one account can be furnished from another.

So, Lucullus – at his own expense – transformed the Campus Martius just outside the city into a gigantic exhibition of all the weapons of war and siege engines he had with him or had captured. There were horsemen in armor, captured princes in chariots, 110 ships of war, life-sized statues of the king they had been fighting, his shield that was loaded with precious stones, 20 wagons of silver vessels that had been captured, 30 of gold vessels, mules carrying gold plated furniture, ingots of silver and millions of silver and gold coins. There were signs carried by wagons or soldiers proclaiming how much money Lucullus had contributed to Pompey’s campaign, how much treasure was delivered to the treasury of Rome, how much booty and bonuses he had given to each of his soldiers, and so on. In short, it was just a disgusting display of self-aggrandizement, but that’s what the Romans lived for! The whole thing was followed, of course, by an immense banquet where the triumphator fed the entire city on thousands of tables set out with tons of food and tens of thousands of really big jugs of wine (amphorae). So famous did Lucullus become for his banqueting that the word lucullan now means lavish, luxurious and gourmet.

To Cicero’s way of thinking (and that of his gang) this was the way to disrupt Catilina’s campaign and totally distract the citizenry. But more than this, it meant that now, all these soldiers of Lucullus were available to vote and, of course the deal was: we grant your self-promoting triumph and you guarantee the votes of your soldiers to our candidates. They weren’t thinking about the long-term, that Pompey was not going to be happy for Lucullus to steal his thunder and glory. This brings us to the real threat to the clique that was far greater than Cicero’s imagined Catilina Conspiracy: Pompey. As it happened, Cato had headed south for a little holiday at one of his estates, taking a load of manuscripts and some philosophers with whom he was planning on an orgy of philosophizing one imagines. He hadn’t gone far when he encountered a huge baggage train with a veritable host of mule drivers: it seems that Pompey’s brother-in-law, Metellus Nepos, had been sent home by Pompey to enter his candidacy for a tribuneship. Plutarch reports that Cato said to his sister, Servilia,

Do you not know that even by himself Metellus is to be feared because of his infatuation? And now that he comes by the advice of Pompeius, he will fall upon the state like a thunderbolt and throw everything into confusion. It is not time then, for a leisurely sojourn in the country, but we must overpower the man or die honorably in a struggle for our liberties.

Keep in mind that the “liberties” of which he speaks are the rights of the oligarchy to rule over everyone else and to amass all property to themselves as they choose. Funny how that word “liberty” can mean different things to different people and if you aren’t aware of the context, you might actually think that Cato cared about other human beings.

As it turned out, both Cato and Nepos were elected as tribunes.

Meanwhile, the campaign for the consulship was still going. Cato supported the above mentioned pedantic patrician, Servius Sulpicius who strictly obeyed the limitations on entourage. Something strange was certainly going on because Servius was campaigning on a platform of constitutional reforms that actually threatened the oligarchy such as the Gracchan plan to replace voting by tribes and centuries with individual ballots. That would be like the US getting rid of electoral votes and actually having popular elections. He also called for a change in jury selection aimed at reducing corruption in the courts. Both of these measures were objectionable to the aristocratic controllers.

 

[Laura]

WRETCHED CATILINA AND PARANOID CICERO

At this time, with the cooperation of Cicero, Cato enacted a new law against electoral fraud prescribing a ten year exile as the penalty. Then, Cicero, with Cato at his side, went around ostentatiously making notes of infractions of the new law. The end result was that they were able to denounce Catilina for his campaign tactics and threatened him with immediate prosecution.

It is at this point that things get really strange. Perhaps Cicero figured that if Caesar could stage legal dramas to make points, he could do it too, because it is almost a certainty that all that followed, the elements of the so-called Catilinarian Conspiracy, were engineered by Cicero.

On September 22nd, the day before the elections (which Cicero obviously feared like the plague), he called an emergency session of the Senate. There he reported that that Catilina had met with his close associates the previous night and had been recorded to say:

…no faithful champion of the wretched could be found except one who was himself wretched; that those who were down and out ought not to trust the promises of the solvent and the fortunate; so let those who wished to refill their empty purses and recoup their losses see what debts, what possessions, what daring he himself had; that he who was to be the general and standard-bearer of the unfortunate should himself be least timid and most unfortunate.

Big deal. This report, delivered by an over-heated Cicero didn’t even get a rise out of the senate. So he had to sex it up by also claiming that there was a plot to assassinate him, the outgoing consul, at the elections. I guess he was so desperate it never occurred to him that since he was the OUTGOING consul, there was no need to assassinate him. He was old news, an almost has-been with 15 minutes of something less than fame. And perhaps that was what was driving him? His need to “make his mark” to prove himself worthy, to be admired, remembered, lionized. Kahn writes:

Apparently, with his repeated warnings of conspiracies over the previous nine months, Cicero had convinced few besides himself of an imminent thrat to the republic. Because of the efforts of Caesar and his associates, many senators were wary of Cicero’s accusations. On this occasion, “his announcement was not regarded as credible, and he was suspected of having uttered false charges … because of personal enmity.

Pressing his point with something like desperation, Cicero, as consul, did manage to win a delay in the elections and this delay was disastrous to Catilina because many of his voting supporters had pressing harvest duties and could not hang around waiting for a new election day to be announced.

The next day, Cicero challenged Catilina to respond to the charges he had made the previous day. Catilina was naturally furious at what this upstart “new man” was trying to do: manipulate and control the body of patrician senators. He shouted that “there were two bodies in the state – one frail with a weak head, the other sturdy but without a head; this body if it deserved his support should not lack a head so long as he lived.”

His meaning was, of course, that the oligarchy was weak in numbers and weak minded, and the great mass of the impoverished were strong in numbers and only needed someone to lead them. Kahn writes:

No state is secure with a broad disparity in wealth between rich and poor, and the disparity in Rome was enormous and growing apace. Although angry at Catilina’s indiscretion in uttering such a dangerous truth, the senators rejected Cicero’s request for special security measures. To Cicero’s fury, Catilina “flung himself out of the Senate joyously triumphant though, “ according to Cicero, “he should not have left that place alive at all.”

Cicero’s conspiracy theory needed legs and that is what he set about doing with every resource he could employ. He had rumors spread that Catilina was planning on assassinating him as he presided at the elections – which was so nonsensical it is astonishing that he even though that was a good rumor. But, it was all about drawing attention to himself, after all. He hired a small army as a bodyguard and made a point of being seen everywhere with them, and wearing his Roman equivalent of a Kevlar vest: a metal breastplate that he managed to make sure everyone saw even though he was wearing it under his tunic.

CATILINE’S HOPES DESTROYED

The election took place and the winners were Junius Silanus, the husband of Caesar’s mistress, Servilia, sister to Cato and Murena, a former lieutenant of Lucullus. Catilina’s followers went sadly home trying to figure out how they were going to survive for another year. And, with the loss of Catilina, and his survival on election day, Cicero lost his bogeyman.

The elections that followed the consular campaign, Caesar was elected praetor. He had safely navigated the minefield of Catilina while, at the same time, holding to his principles. It seems clear that he was holding back until he achieved the consulship while, at the same time, letting it be known that he was in favor of reforms.

The Mithridatic War was almost over as well as the siege of the Temple of Jerusalem; Pompey would soon be coming home. Cicero, who had been the mouthpiece and sycophantic creature of the senatorial clique, the enemies of Pompey, began to worry. So he proposed to grant Pompey a big ceremonial “thanksgiving” . Caesar and Labienus had a better idea: they proposed to grant Pompey the unique privilege of wearing a laurel leaf and an army commander’s cloak at public games, and the garb of the triumphal procession at the races! They knew their man!

The impending return of Pompey made Cicero even more desperate to achieve some kind of memorable glory that he probably felt would keep him safe, and his desperation made him dangerous. What he needed was a scapegoat on which he could focus all the failures of his past year as a consul during which time he had done absolutely nothing to stabilize the increasing distress of the population which could so easily turn against him with just a gesture from Pompey. As has always been the case down through history, the best scapegoats or patsies, are men too weak to resist, but with enough prestige or standing to seem a credible menace. Certainly the clique saw Caesar as an annoyance and mini-threat, but he was secure because of his popularity, his skill at avoiding tar-baby issues, and it was assumed that he was Pompey’s agent. Crassus, another thorn in the side of the clique was too wealthy and had too extensive a network of clients.

Back to Catilina.

By this time, Cicero knew that nobody was going to take his word for anything. One suspects that he was tolerated because he was a good propagandist to send out and put on a show for the public but that he was also seen as something not quite conspecific with the aristocrats. So his problem was how to convince the citizens that Catilina was engaged in a subversive conspiracy to murder him and destroy the state.

Catilina, on his side, wasn’t a fool. He was an experienced military officer even if he was of a volatile and impetuous temperament. He knew that Cicero could mobilize legions if he were to appear to be seriously intending any kind of subversive action and he also knew that Pompey would go into transports of ecstasy to be able to “save” the republic on the smallest excuse, thus having another reason to be showered with glory.

Throughout the previous year, Cicero had been hammering on his theme of “threats to the commonwealth” and it was at least partly credible because there was spreading disaffection among the populace, and there had been riots and demonstrations off and on through the past few years. He must have sat up many nights to come up with the plan that he now put into execution.

SENATUS CONSULTUM ULTIMUM

On the evening of October 18 (or 20, depending on the source), a messenger knocked at Crassus’ door and delivered three sealed letters and then quickly disappeared into the night. Crassus read the letter addressed to him and then immediately sent slaves to the recipients of the other two letters asking them to meet him at Cicero’s house immediately. Apparently, this letter contained a warning to Crassus and the other two recipients to leave the city because total death and destruction was coming on October 27th; that is, 7 or 9 days hence.

The next day, Cicero presented the letters to the senate as proof that Catiline was planning exactly what Cicero had said he had been planning for the whole of the preceding ten months. Cicero declared that Catiline was planning to massacre all the nobles (except the three who had been warned, obviously, plus everybody else since a week of lead time had been given which was odd) and burn the city to the ground.

Three days later, a senator (Quintus Arrius, praetor for 72?), read aloud a letter he had received from Etruria which was a notable hotbed for disaffection. The letter reported that the Sullan veterans were gathering for a march on Rome on October 27.

And so, Cicero got what he wanted: the senatus consultum ultimum which was a declaration of martial law with full power to do what he thought necessary to protect the city handed to Cicero.

Just considering the events up to this point raises a whole lot of questions.

Why would conspirators send letters declaring an impending attack with a week’s lead time? To whom would that be advantageous? Obviously, not to any conspirators with death and destruction in their hearts. But it certainly was advantageous to Cicero because it gave him time to perform deeds of derring-do and avert the disaster thereby covering himself with glory.

What was up with that late night meeting at Cicero’s between him and Crassus and two other mystery nobles? Was one of them Caesar? It should be noted that Quintus Arrius, who reported having received a report from Etruria, was a close associate of Caesar’s. One can’t help but wonder if Cicero had hatched a plot that would have included Caesar and negotiations took place that night between them that left Cicero something of a free hand with Caesar agreeing to not raise uncomfortable questions. Because, in point of fact, Caesar did not even suggest an investigation into the source of the letters or the allegations made therein. This is a serious lapse on his part, and it was to get stranger.

What seems certain is that, without the support – or at least the acquiescence – of Caesar and Crassus and Quintus Arrius, Cicero would not have been able to excite the senate any more than he had been able to thus far. But the silence and grim faces of Crassus and Caesar, with the added testimony of their associate, Arrius, carried more import than Cicero could have managed on his own.

The result was that Cicero railroaded the senate into unquestioning support of his campaign against “subversion.” He immediately stationed a garrison of soldiers on the Capitol and sent them patrolling through the streets. He made sure to be seen everywhere with his small army of bodyguards under the command of his friend, Atticus. The terror he was inspiring in everyone was so severe that senators and wealthy citizens began to abandon the city in droves with wagons and pack animals loaded with their treasures. The moneylenders began to call in their loans and prices of shares in corporations fell causing a general collapse of credit.

Whatever trick Cicero had pulled on Caesar to get him to shut up and sit back while Cicero played out his self-glorification nonsense, Caesar was as resourceful as ever. Caesar’s friend, Lepidus Paullus brought an indictment against Catilina for fomenting violence. This was probably done with the agreement of Catilina because it afforded him the opportunity to clear his name in court. In a trial, Catilina could compel Cicero to produce informants for cross-examination and an investigation into the anonymous letters could be launched. More than that, this move meant that Cicero would be prevented from declaring him an outlaw without a trial under the decree of martial law. Immediately upon being indicted, Catilina turned himself in and offered to go into custody in Cicero’s house! Cicero was clearly embarrassed and declined so Nepos, Pompey’s new tribune, took him into his house.

THE CONSPIRACY FAILS TO MATERIALIZE

October 27 came and went and nothing happened. There was no arson, no massacre, no army of farmers with firebrands and pitchforks at the gate of the city. On November 1st, the predicted uprising was also a non-event. His credibility was further eroded by the arrival of a letter from the alleged leader of the Sullan veterans in Etruria. The letter said:

We have taken up arms not against our fatherland nor to bring danger upon others bot to protect our own persons from outrage; for we are wretched and destitute, many of us have been driven from our country by the violence and cruelty of the moneylenders, while all have lost repute and fortune. … We ask neither for power nor for riches, the usual causes of war and strife among mortals, but only for freedom, which no true man gives up except with his life. …take thought for your unhappy countrymen… and [do] not to impose upon us the necessity of asking ourselves how we may sell our lives most dearly.

In short, the “march on Rome” was simply an appeal for the redress of grievances. They left the choice of violence or peaceful negotiation to the magistrates and the senate. The consular to whom the letter had been addressed rejected the plea and demanded that the “reels” lay down their arms and repeated the myth of equality in answer to them:

The senate and the Roman people had always been so compassionate and merciful that no one had ever asked it for succor and been refused.

Things were not looking good for Cicero. His campaign for glory was losing momentum and he was being threatened with a court of inquiry. Time was running out. His term as consul was almost over and Pompey was on his way to Rome. He had to do something, and fast.

 

[Laura]

I'll finish tomorrow when I'll get to the really interesting clues that emerge with a careful study.

 

[Laura]

VI: GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS

THE FIRST CATALINARIAN ORATION

So, on November 8, Cicero again summoned an emergency session of the senate. He ordered the meeting to be held in the Temple of Jupiter. When Caesar arrived, he noted that the place was crawling with armed men. Catilina arrived and took his place on the bench and other senators moved away from him. Cicero had a problem. He had to explain why the conspiracy to destroy all of Rome and the whole world hadn’t materialized. He further had to get himself out of the problem of Catiline being in custody and there being a legal indictment that would mean a trial with witnesses and evidence. In the following oration, you will see how he goes on and on about the dangerous Catiline while, at the same time urging him, commanding him, badgering him to “begone”. He explains the failure of the conspiracy to his own diligence. He, alone, is all that stands between Rome and destruction because he, alone, is the one who knows everything, has all the spies, has handled so many threats in silence, and he has had to wage this war alone because nobody believes him! What is extremely bizarre is that he declares his purpose to Catiline in this oration: that he should leave the city, assemble with his co-conspirators, so that Cicero can send a legion to destroy them all together. He also brings up the reason he did not immediately execute Catiline: he knew that there might very well be a popular uprising against him if he did! But, of course, he, Cicero, is so noble that he is willing to brave even that for the sake of his beloved Rome! What seems obvious is that Cicero really did fear executing Catiline. He also hoped that he would drive Catiline into a real, reactionary, conspiracy as is obvious from this harangue, this ad hominen attack, this rant full of lies, suggestive obfuscations, and paranoid delusions. I’m quoting in extenso, though I’ve cut out some repetitious circumlocutory rhetorical bridges.

To get things moving on the right tone, Cicero shouted out: “How long will you abuse our patience, Catilina?” Pointing dramatically at the proud, but nearly destroyed man he declaimed:

How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? When is there to be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it does now? Do not the night guards placed on the Palatine Hill -- do not the watches posted throughout the city—does not the alarm of the people, and the union of all good men -- does not the precaution taken of assembling the senate in this most defensible place -- do not the looks and countenances of this venerable body here present, have any effect upon you? Do you not feel that your plans are detected? Do you not see that your conspiracy is already arrested and rendered powerless by the knowledge which every one here possesses of it? What is there that you did last night, what the night before -- where is it that you were -- who was there that you summoned to meet you -- what design was there which was adopted by you, with which you think that any one of us is unacquainted?

The senate is aware of these things; the consul sees them; and yet this man lives. Lives! aye, he comes even into the senate. He takes a part in the public deliberations; he is watching and marking down and checking off for slaughter every individual among us.…
You ought, O Catiline, long ago to have been led to execution by command of the consul. That destruction which you have been long plotting against us ought to have already fallen on your own head.

What? Did not that most illustrious man, Publius Scipio, the Pontifex Maximus, in his capacity of a private citizen, put to death Tiberius Gracchus, tho but slightly undermining the constitution? And shall we, who are the consuls, tolerate Catiline, openly desirous to destroy the whole world with fire and slaughter?...

For we have a resolution of the senate, a formidable and authoritative decree [SCU] against you, O Catiline; the wisdom of the republic is not at fault, nor the dignity of this senatorial body. We, we alone—I say it openly,—we, the consuls, are wanting in our duty.

The senate once passed a decree that Lucius Opimius, the consul, should take care that the republic suffered no injury. Not one night elapsed. There was put to death, on some mere suspicion of disaffection, Caius Gracchus, a man whose family had borne the most unblemished reputation for many generations. There was slain Marcus Fulvius, a man of consular rank, and all his children. By a like decree of the senate the safety of the republic was entrusted to Caius Marius and Lucius Valerius, the consuls. Did not the vengeance of the republic, did not execution overtake Lucius Saturninus, a tribune of the people, and Caius Servilius, the pretor, without the delay of one single day? But we, for these twenty days, have been allowing the edge of the senate’s authority to grow blunt, as it were. For we are in possession of a similar decree of the senate, but we keep it locked up in its parchment—buried, I may say, in the sheath; and according to this decree you ought, O Catiline, to be put to death this instant. …

“With passionate hyperbole, Cicero was giving warning that, armed with the ultimate decree, he would execute without trial men he adjudged subversive; and like subversive-hunters of every age, he was transforming a possible minor police action into a crusade in defense of society against universal cataclysm! “You should be executed,” said Cicero, rendering explicit his intention to repeat the lynchings employed against the Gracchi and Saturninus, “when no one so depraved, so abandoned, so like yourself, can be found who does not admit that this was done justly.” (Cicero was warning that he would equate “sympathizers” with “subversives”.) “The eyes and ears of many shall watch you,” he admonished Catilina, “although you may not know it, as they have done heretofore.” Cicero tells us about his network of spies and agents and it seems certain that he was watching other senators, too. “In this most sacred and dignified council of the whole world,” he noted, “are men who plan for the destruction of all of us, who plan for the destruction of this city and even the destruction of the whole world.” Having induced fear and suspicion into the Senate, Cicero now presented his evidence of the conspiracy to “destroy the whole world”. (Kahn)

What was this earth-shattering evidence?

A camp is pitched in Italy, at the entrance of Etruria, in hostility to the republic; the number of the enemy increases every day; and yet the general of that camp, the leader of those enemies, we see within the walls—aye, and even in the senate—planning every day some internal injury to the republic. If, O Catiline, I should now order you to be arrested, to be put to death, I should, I suppose, have to fear lest all good men should say that I had acted tardily, rather than that any one should affirm that I acted cruelly. But yet this, which ought to have been done long since, I have good reason for not doing as yet; I will put you to death, then, when there shall be not one person possible to be found so wicked, so abandoned, so like yourself, as not to allow that it has been rightly done. As long as one person exists who can dare to defend you, you shall live; but you shall live as you do now, surrounded by my many and trusty guards, so that you shall not be able to stir one finger against the republic; many eyes and ears shall still observe and watch you, as they have hitherto done, tho you shall not perceive them. …

Do you recollect that on the 21st of October I said in the senate that on a certain day, which was to be the 27th of October, C. Manlius, the satellite and servant of your audacity, would be in arms? Was I mistaken, Catiline, not only in so important, so atrocious, so incredible a fact, but, what is much more remarkable, in the very day? I said also in the senate that you had fixed the massacre of the nobles for the 28th of October when many chief men of the senate had left Rome, not so much for the sake of saving themselves as of checking your designs. Can you deny that on that very day you were so hemmed in by my guards and my vigilance that you were unable to stir one finger against the republic….

Listen while I speak of the night before. You shall now see that I watch far more actively for the safety than you do for the destruction of the republic. I say that you came the night before (I will say nothing obscurely) into the Scythedealers’ Street, to the house of Marcus Lecca; that many of your accomplices in the same insanity and wickedness came there, too. Do you dare to deny it? Why are you silent? I will prove it if you do deny it; for I see here in the senate some men who were there with you. …

There are here,—here in our body, gentlemen, in this the most holy and dignified assembly of the whole world, men who meditate my death, and the death of all of us, and the destruction of this city, and of the whole world. I, the consul, see them; I ask them their opinion about the republic, and I do not yet attack, even by words, those who ought to be put to death by the sword. You were, then, O Catiline, at Lecca’s that night; you divided Italy into sections; you settled where every one was to go; you fixed whom you were to leave at Rome, whom you were to take with you; you portioned out the divisions of the city for conflagration; you undertook that you yourself would at once leave the city, and said that there was then only this to delay you,—that I was still alive. Two Roman knights were found to deliver you from this anxiety, and to promise that very night, before daybreak, to slay me in my bed. All this I knew almost before your meeting had broken up. I strengthened and fortified my house with a stronger guard; I refused admittance, when they came, to those whom you sent in the morning to salute me, and of whom I had foretold to many eminent men that they would come to me at that time….

This was the action for which the consul had been preparing the Senate with his warnings of an impending world catastrophe?! He called a special meeting for this? A hokey story about a meeting in a dark room and disappearing assassins at his front door in broad daylight that just somehow got away?

Nobody – not even Caesar – troubled to ask Cicero why he didn’t arrest the wretches if they had showed up at his door. Why didn’t he produce them as witnesses? Why didn’t he produce his confidential informant who told him about this meeting? Did he know about the meeting before, or after the arrival of the assassins? I would suggest that they were the most pusillanimous assassins ever if the maid could divert them from their mission.

As, then, this is the case, O Catiline, continue as you have begun. Leave the city at least; the gates are open; depart. That Manlian camp of yours has been waiting too long for you as its general. And lead forth with you all your friends, or at least as many as you can; purge the city of your presence; you will deliver me from a great fear, when there is a wall between you and me. Among us you can dwell no longer—I will not bear it, I will not permit it, I will not tolerate it….

Wherefore, since I do not yet venture to do that which is the best thing, and which belongs to my office and to the discipline of our ancestors, I will do that which is more merciful if we regard its rigor, and more expedient for the State. For if I order you to be put to death, the rest of the conspirators will still remain in the republic; if, as I have long been exhorting you, you depart, your companions, those worthless dregs of the republic, will be drawn off from the city, too. What is the matter, Catiline? Do you hesitate to do that when I order you which you were already doing of your own accord? The consul orders an enemy to depart from the city. Do you ask me, Are you to go into banishment? I do not order it; but, if you consult me, I advise it….

How often have you endeavored to slay me, both as consul-elect and as actual consul? How many shots of yours, so aimed that they seemed impossible to be escaped, have I avoided by some slight stooping aside, and some dodging, as it were, of my body? You attempt nothing, you execute nothing, you devise nothing that can be kept hid from me at the proper time; and yet you do not cease to attempt and to contrive. …

There has now for many years been no crime committed but by you; no atrocity has taken place without you; you alone unpunished and unquestioned have murdered the citizens, have harassed and plundered the allies; you alone have had power not only to neglect all laws and investigations, but to overthrow and break through them. Your former actions, tho they ought not to have been borne, yet I did bear as well as I could; but now that I should be wholly occupied with fear of you alone, that at every sound I should dread Catiline, that no design should seem possible to be entertained against me which does not proceed from your wickedness, this is no longer endurable. Depart, then, and deliver me from this fear—that, if it be a just one, I may not be destroyed; if an imaginary one, that at least I may at last cease to fear….

What shall I say of your having given yourself into custody? what of your having said, for the sake of avoiding suspicion, that you were willing to dwell in the house of Marcus Lepidus? … but how far can we think that man ought to be from bonds and imprisonment who has already judged himself deserving of being given into custody…

Catilina demanded to know explicitly what Cicero had in mind. “Is it to be exile?” Cicero was silent. Catilina insisted that the Senate take a stand one way or the other. “Refer the matter to the Senate, and if this body votes that I should go into exile, I will obey.”

But Cicero would not be entrapped by Catilina’s inconvenient demand that he implicate himself. Cicero always had more cunning than principle, and his cunning always was that of a precocious six-year-old and ended in ultimate disaster for himself. This time was no different. Remember back at the trial of Rabirius when Cicero was booed for expressing approval of the murder of Saturninus, how he continued to talk to the silent people as though they were in agreement with him? Well, he used a variation on that trick again with Catilina. Instead of calling for a vote on Catilina’s request, he called for a vote on the exiling of the revered elder statesman, Catulus. At an uproar of indignation, Cicero proclaimed in exultation: “In your case, Catilina, when they say nothing, they express their approval; their acquiescence is a decree.” And then he continued on with his ad hominem attacks on the nearly destroyed object of his persecution.

Make a motion, say you, to the senate (for that is what you demand), and if this body votes that you ought to go into banishment, you say that you will obey. I will not make such a motion—it is contrary to my principles, and yet I will let you see what these men think of you. Be gone from the city, O Catiline; deliver the republic from fear; depart into banishment, if that is the word you are waiting for. What now, O Catiline? Do you not perceive, do you not see the silence of these men; they permit it, they say nothing; why wait you for the authority of their words when you see their wishes in their silence?...

I see, if alarmed at my words you bring your mind to go into banishment, what a storm of unpopularity hangs over me, if not at present, while the memory of your wickedness is fresh, at all events hereafter. But it is worth while to incur that, as long as that is but a private misfortune of my own, and is unconnected with the dangers of the republic…

Wherefore, as I have said before, go forth, and if you wish to make me, your enemy as you call me, unpopular, go straight into banishment. I shall scarcely be able to endure all that will be said if you do so; I shall scarcely be able to support my load of unpopularity if you do go into banishment at the command of the consul; but if you wish to serve my credit and reputation, go forth with your ill-omened band of profligates; betake yourself to Manlius, rouse up the abandoned citizens, separate yourself from the good ones, wage war against your country, exult in your impious banditti, so that you may not seem to have been driven out by me and gone to strangers, but to have gone invited to your own friends….

All the toils you have gone through have always pointed to this sort of life; your lying on the ground not merely to lie in wait to gratify your unclean desires, but even to accomplish crimes; your vigilance, not only when plotting against the sleep of husbands, but also against the goods of your murdered victims, have all been preparations for this. Now you have an opportunity of displaying your splendid endurance of hunger, of cold, of want of everything; by which in a short time you will find yourself worn out. All this I effected when I procured your rejection from the consulship, that you should be reduced to make attempts on your country as an exile, instead of being able to distress it as consul, and that that which had been wickedly undertaken by you should be called piracy rather than war….
In truth, if my country, which is far dearer to me than my life—if all Italy—if the whole republic were to address me, “Marcus Tullius, what are you doing? will you permit that man to depart whom you have ascertained to be an enemy? whom you see ready to become the general of the war? whom you know to be expected in the camp of the enemy as their chief, the author of all this wickedness, the head of the conspiracy, the instigator of the slaves and abandoned citizens, so that he shall seem not driven out of the city by you, but let loose by you against the city? Will you not order him to be thrown into prison, to be hurried off to execution, to be put to death with the most prompt severity? What hinders you? Is it the customs of our ancestors? But even private men have often in this republic slain mischievous citizens. Is it the laws which have been passed about the punishment of Roman citizens? But in this city those who have rebelled against the republic have never had the rights of citizens. Do you fear odium with posterity? You are showing fine gratitude to the Roman people which has raised you, a man known only by your own actions, of no ancestral renown, through all the degrees of honor at so early an age to the very highest office, if from fear of unpopularity or of any danger you neglect the safety of your fellow citizens. But if you have a fear of unpopularity, is that arising from the imputation of vigor and boldness, or that arising from that of inactivity and indecision most to be feared? When Italy is laid waste by war, when cities are attacked and houses in flames, do you not think that you will be then consumed by a perfect conflagration of hatred?”….

I will make this short answer: If, gentlemen, I thought it best that Catiline should be punished with death, I would not have given the space of one hour to this gladiator to live in. If, forsooth, those excellent men and most illustrious cities not only did not pollute themselves, but even glorified themselves by the blood of Saturninus, and the Gracchi, and Flaccus, and many others of old time, surely I had no cause to fear lest for slaying this parricidal murderer of the citizens any unpopularity should accrue to me with posterity. And if it did threaten me to ever so great a degree, yet I have always been of the disposition to think unpopularity earned by virtue and glory not unpopularity…

Next Cicero repeats his warnings about guilt by association. Among the enemies of the republic were those who had “fostered the hopes of Catilina by mild measures and… strengthened the growing conspiracy by not believing in its existence.” (!) In other words, anyone who doubted Cicero now, anyone who insisted on the civil rights of the accused, was also to be suspected of treason!

Tho there are some men in this body who either do not see what threatens, or dissemble what they do see; who have fed the hope of Catiline by mild sentiments, and have strengthened the rising conspiracy by not believing it; influenced by whose authority many, and they not wicked, but only ignorant, if I punished him would say that I had acted cruelly and tyrannically. But I know that if he arrives at the camp of Manlius to which he is going, there will be no one so stupid as not to see that there has been a conspiracy, no one so hardened as not to confess it. But if this man alone were put to death, I know that this disease of the republic would be only checked for a while, not eradicated forever. But if he banishes himself, and takes with him all his friends, and collects at one point all the ruined men from every quarter, then not only will this full-grown plague of the republic be extinguished and eradicated, but also the root and seed of all future evils….

We have now for a long time, gentlemen, lived among these dangers and machinations of conspiracy; but somehow or other, the ripeness of all wickedness, and of this long-standing madness and audacity, has come to a head at the time of my consulship. But if this man alone is removed from this piratical crew, we may appear, perhaps, for a short time relieved from fear and anxiety, but the danger will settle down and lie hid in the veins and bowels of the republic. As it often happens that men afflicted with a severe disease, when they are tortured with heat and fever, if they drink cold water, seem at first to be relieved, but afterward suffer more and more severely; so this disease which is in the republic, if relieved by the punishment of this man, will only get worse and worse, as the rest will be still alive….

Wherefore, O conscript fathers, let the worthless be gone,—let them separate themselves from the good,—let them collect in one place,—let them, as I have often said before, be separated from us by a wall; let them cease to plot against the consul in his own house,—to surround the tribunal of the city pretor,—to besiege the senate-house with swords,—to prepare brands and torches to burn the city; let it, in short, be written on the brow of every citizen, what his sentiments are about the republic. I promise you, this, O conscript fathers, that there shall be so much diligence in us the consuls, so much authority in you, so much virtue in the Roman knights, so much unanimity in all good men that you shall see everything made plain and manifest by the departure of Catiline,—everything checked and punished….

With these omens, O Catiline, be gone to your impious and nefarious war, to the great safety of the republic, to your own misfortune and injury, and to the destruction of those who have joined themselves to you in every wickedness and atrocity. …

Rather a lame ending to the thunderous expostulations he began with, eh? He really needed him to leave because voluntary withdrawal into exile would have suggested his guilt.

I realize that the reader is probably wishing that somebody would shut Cicero’s filthy mouth but that doesn’t answer the current question: why would anyone want to assassinate an almost ex-consul who had basically blown his chance to do anything worthwhile for humanity much less, Rome?

Nobody, obviously. But that very same useless eater Cicero might definitely want to try to convince people that he was the only thing that stood between them and death and destruction, that he was the greatest thing since flush toilets. As I noted above, he had to convince the senate and everyone else and that meant he had to create some kind of evidence. He needed time. And he most definitely needed for Catiline to leave under orders of the senate (more or less) and get him, Cicero, out of that pickle where a court case might be in the offing. Remember, under indictment, Catilina could not be outlawed and had recourse to demanding evidence and witnesses.

I don’t know, I just have a hard time getting into Cicero’s head. He was so childish and petty and yet he had an incredibly cunning computing machine at his disposal, and he used his principle-less brain always and ever in seeking attention and glory for himself. It’s like seeing a very bratty, very imaginative, six-year old playing with a loaded gun. One gets the impression that Caesar was quite conscious of this and was determined to stay as much out of the firing range as possible.

 

[Laura]

CAESAR IS SILENT

When Caesar had been a child, his own father had been compelled to vote with all the other senators for the outlawing of Marius. For some reason that we do not know, Caesar sat in silence throughout this absurd farce. Cicero, the “new man”, the consul, confident beyond anything (which suggests that there were other elements at work here), intimidated and threatened with guilt by association, the entire senate, while he badgered and goaded a haughty patrician sensitive of his dignity and in a desperate situation, to rebellion. Catilina roared: “Since I am brought to bay by my enemies and driven desperate, I will put out my fire by general devastation.”

Caesar had been silent throughout. He had asked no questions that were certainly begging to be asked. He had raised no objections and had even submitted to insinuations by Cicero that he might be involved in Catilina’s plot. The complete subjugation of the entire senate by a “new man”, and this new man’s status even defended against Catilina who had appealed to his fellow senators as one aristocrat to others, strikes me as surpassingly strange. Both sides, the optimates of the old guard and the populares of the reformers, sat silent while Cicero ran roughshod over their constitution.

The only thing I see that offers a possible clue as to how he did this and got away with it are these words spoken by Cicero to Catiline:

The eyes and ears of many shall watch you, although you may not know it, as they have done heretofore…

Did Cicero have a spy network? Had he been collecting up all the dirty laundry of the senators and prying into their closets to find skeletons? What came down in that meeting with Crassus and the two mystery nobles, one of whom was probably Caesar? Why, in the name of all good sense, did everybody involved in this whole ridiculous episode, just lay down like rugs and let Cicero walk all over them?

 

[Laura]

THE SECOND CATALINARIAN ORATION

The next day, Caesar stood by silently as Cicero proclaimed to the people of Rome the “proof” of Catilina’s guilt: that he had fled from Rome early that morning! Never mind that Cicero had essentially ordered him to do so! He told them that Catilina had left…

Blazing with audacity, breathing forth crime, wickedly plotting the destruction of his country, threatening you and this city with sword and fire. … Catilina ought long ago to have been put to death…

This was the Second Catalinian Oration.

What is fascinating is how certain Cicero was that now, Catiline was gone, there was no further danger within the city!

No injury will now be prepared against these walls within the walls themselves by that monster and prodigy of wickedness. And we have, without controversy, defeated him, the sole general of this domestic war. For now that dagger will no longer hover about our sides; we shall not be afraid in the campus, in the forum, in the senate-house,—aye, and within our own private walls.

The only way Cicero could possibly have been certain of that would be if he, himself, was the author of the conspiracy theory. But Cicero thought of everything. He knew that the disbelievers would be asking: why did you let him go if he was so dangerous and you had proof? And who was to blame? All of those who had not listened to Cicero when he first pointed the finger at Catilina. The appropriate actions had not been taken because it was…

Not approved by all of you …if I had punished him with death I would have been overwhelmed with odium.

He dismissed Catilina’s co-conspirators, his alleged “army of rebels” as “a collection of ruined old men, of boorish high-livers, or rustic spendthrifts” who had united in an “incredible alliance of crime” due only to desperation over their debts. And of course, they were to blame for those debts, naturally. Almost twenty years later, Cicero would recall that “never were measures for the repudiation of debts more strenuously agitated than in my consulship. Men of every sort and rank attempted with arms and armies to force the project through.” Cicero, of course, took no measures to deal with the problems, instead, as he declared with pride that baffles the human mind “I opposed them with such energy that this plague was wholly eradicated from the body politic.” Cicero, as the agent and mouthpiece of the oligarchs, into whose company he had sold his soul to be admitted, never entertained a single proposal to relieve the distress of humanity. “If my consulship is to destroy these men since it cannot cure them, not some short time but many ages will be added to the life of the state.”

He was wrong, dead, dead, wrong. In fact, the solutions of Cicero and his mentors, repression and massacre, actually hastened the end of their rule and the death of the Republic.

Interestingly, Cicero exposes that he was rather conscious of what he was doing and that it was evil. He was hoping that he had driven Catilina into the arms of Manlius, the old Sullan centurion in Etruria who was the leader of the veteran protestors there. But he acknowledged that if Catilina actually went into exile that “men will say not that this man was stripped of his armor of audacity by me, not that he was dazed and terrified by my vigilance nor thwarted in his hope and purpose but uncondemned and innocent he has gone into exile, driven out by the force and threats of a consul, and if he follows this course there will be those who will wish to think him not a criminal but an object of pity and me not a most watchful consul but a most cruel tyrant.” But he didn’t let this worry him for long, he was too focused on exalting his own power and victory over Catilina who he had driven out of Rome. He wrote:

On this side fights modesty; on that shamelessness; on tis chastity, on that wantonness; on this honor, on that fraud; on this righteousness, on that crime; on this steadfastness, on that madness; on this honesty, on that deceit; on this self-restraint, on that lust; and finally on this side justice, temperance, fortitude, prudence, all the virtues, contend with injustice, extravagance, cowardice, recklessness, all the vices; lastly, abundance with poverty, good reason with bad, sanity with insanity and, finally, fair hope fights against deepest despair.”

“Such language would recall to Caesar and to other intellectuals in the audience a classic description by Thucydides of class violence in the Greek world, when “words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them” according to the side employing them. “Reckless audacity,” declared Thucydides, employing a term frequently used in Cicero’s recent orations, “came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation [for which Cicero pretended to take himself to task], specious cowardice; moderation [a virtue which Cicero rejected in his call for Catilina’s summary execution] was held to be a cloak of unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question [Cicero blocked investigation of charges], inaptness to act on any… The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected [according to Cicero, of guilt by association]… Thus the greatest of Greek historians characterized for all generations to come the distortion in language in times of repression of discontent, a distortion exemplified in Cicero’s harangues.” (Kahn)

It was obvious what Cicero was after. He hoped that he could goad Catilina and other discontented persons to revolt so that he could repeat Sulla’s performance of restoration of the absolute authority of the inner circle of the senate, though without massacres and proscriptions; and all before the end of his term as consul and definitely before Pompey reached Rome! He’d been trying to get this thing going for almost a whole year!

The greatest perils well be averted without any tumult and a rebellion and a civil war, the greatest and most cruel within the memory of man, will be suppressed by me alone, a leader and commander wearing the garb of peace.

How blind could he be? It could be said that the greatest and most cruel civil war within the memory of man was caused by Cicero almost single-handedly because, not only did he do nothing when he had the chance as consul, when Caesar came to power, he used all his wiles and cunning to subvert his efforts to reform and resuscitate the Republic. It could even be said that his cunning, insinuating, suggestive rhetoric was directly responsible for the plot to assassinate Caesar. What a filthy, disgusting creature he was.

 

[Laura]

THE THIRD CATLINARIAN ORATION

Well, Catilina fulfilled Cicero’s expectations and, on his way into exile in Massilia, he worked himself up so that by the time he reached Etruria, he turned off the main road and headed for Manlius’ camp. By doing so, he rescued Cicero from serious embarrassment. It had been just over a month since the SCU and finally, with this news, Cicero was able to get the senate to declare Catilina and Manlius outlaws. That fact alone again tells us that Cicero’s claims were not believable to the senators and something else was going on in the background at which we can only guess. After eleven months of constant harping and hammering and haranguing, raising alarms, acting hysterical, Cicero had not persuaded anybody of any great peril to the Republic. A deadline was set for the rebels to lay down their arms and rewards offered for any information about subversive activities.

Cato, at this point, showed signs of rebellion against Cicero’s cause. There is little doubt in my mind that he found Cicero’s megalomania to be highly offensive. Completely disregarding Cicero, Cato joined up with one of the defeated consular candidates, Servius, and indicted the new consul-elect Murena for election fraud. Cicero found that he had to lay aside his burden of protecting the world from total destruction in order to defend Murena. However, he wasn’t able to deny his client’s guilt so he turned to comedic ad hominem attacks on the plaintiff and his partner, Cato and then insinuated that Cato himself was part of some sort of conspiracy

The infection of [Catilina’s] crime has spread more widely than anyone thinks. [Directed at Cato] The Trojan Horse is within, within the city, I say.

Then, the coup de grace of his un-winnable case: if his client, the consul-elect, was to be convicted, then…

The man who may check the rising tide of sedition and turmoil, that monstrous, insatiable curse of Catilina, will burst out anew, it will spread rapidly over the territory about the city; madness will stalk on the speakers’ platform, terror in the Senate house, conspiracy in the Forum, an army in the Campus Martius, desolation in the country; in every dwelling and in every place we shall fear sword and fire.

He was definitely getting a lot of mileage out of this thing! And no juror would want to be responsible for the destruction of the state, or the whole world, especially when they have a nice, fat, bribe to spend!

Though he was clearly guilty, Murena was acquitted.

At the end of November, Cicero only had a month left to assure his place in history. Within a few days, hostile tribunes would take their seats; in 3 weeks, Caesar would take up his duties as praetor. No one had taken up the offer of clemency nor the reward for information about any conspiracies abroad. It was intolerable! At this rate, all of Rome would suspect that there never had been a conspiracy and Cicero would be the laughingstock of the empire not to mention forgotten by history.

PORTENTS

As if in answer to his prayers, the gods sent a nice selection of evil portents: a man was struck by a thunderbolt out of a clear, blue sky at Pompeii; at Spoletum, there was an earthquake which collapsed many buildings; eerie lights were seen in the sky. Cicero, never one to look at a gifted portent too closely, summoned the Senate to another emergency session on December 3rd. He was hardly able to contain himself.

He recited how he had gotten his spies inside a coterie of aristocratic conspirators. They had given him certain information to wit: there were Gaulish Allobrogian envoys in Rome who had come to petition for relief from the extortion of Roman officials and usurers. A certain Umbrenus who was a merchant and moneylender in Gaul and “personally acquainted with many of the leading men of the [Gallic] states” had approached these envoys and invited them to a meeting at the home of Sempronia. She had been a supporter of Catilina during the recent electoral campaign. During this meeting, Umbrenus led on the Gauls and disclosed to them a plot to overthrow the government that might interest them since they were not happy with Rome. According to Cicero, he also named all the participants and, to “give the envoys greater courage, included many guiltless men of all classes” in their list of participants in the plot. This was a handy maneuver on Cicero’s part because he could thereby hold the fates of just about anybody in his hands as either a “real revolutionary” or one of the fake ones included in the list for dissimulative purposes. The Allobrogians were suspicious of this whole situation so they went to their senatorial patron, Quintus Fabius Sanga, and told him of the whole matter and he then informed Cicero.

The Allobrogians were well acquainted with Cicero. Some time before, representatives of this tribe had accused a governor of extortion and Cicero had defended the governor. He obtained an acquittal for his client by asking the jurors whether “the most honorable native of Gaul [was] to be set on the same level with even the meanest citizen of Rome”. He depicted the complaint against a Roman governor as “a savage and unconscionable assault of barbarism.” And then, earlier in this same year of the Catiline Conspiracy, he had won the acquittal of another governor, Pompey’s enemy, Piso, also accused of extortion in Gaul. Caesar had represented the Gauls as prosecutor. In just the previous week, the Allobrogians had witnessed Cicero defending a third former governor of Gaul, the consul-elect Murena and heard him described as noted for “justice and energy” in enabling the Roman usurers and traders to collect debts in Gaul. Murena was a collaborator in the very extortions for which the Allobrogians were now seeking redress.

Cicero wanted the Gauls to go along with the conspirators and get him hard evidence. Also, he claimed that it was at his suggestion that the Gauls should demand that the conspirators to give them credentials to show to their countrymen. Handily, they had a new member of the conspiracy (or so it was said) who volunteered to accompany the Gauls on their journey home. Along the way he was alleged to have been intending to introduce them to Catiline now holed up in Tuscany. So, they were supposed to appear to sneak away at night and would be “arrested”, but only for “show purposes” while carrying letters and with the alleged member of the conspiracy in their group.

In any event, with his inside scoop from Umbrenus – who was probably Cicero’s agent and brokered this whole deal – the Allobrogian envoys were ambushed on the Milvian bridge as they were trying to leave Rome at 3 o’clock in the morning. and the “incriminating letters” were found in their possession along with the suspected conspirator named Volturcius.

It’s really not hard to see that both Umbrenus and Volturcius must have been in the employ of Cicero. The latter had “only recently joined” the conspiracy and, upon capture, rattled off names and details with remarkable alacrity. Not only did he corroborate the Gauls who had been lured into a set-up scenario so as to be “witnesses”, but he also cheerfully supported every dire prediction that Cicero had been making for almost a year. He swore that an uprising was now scheduled for December 19th and, at a signal, many of the young men of the most noble families were sworn to murder their senatorial fathers. Interestingly, Cicero did not press for names of the prospective parricides but one can easily see what a weapon this was in his hand. Any senator who opposed him could end up having his son named as a conspirator by these several witnesses.

CONSPIRATORS ARRESTED

Then Cicero described how the authors of the alleged “incriminating letters” found in the possession of the Gauls were arrested and brought to his house for questioning. They were not aware of the arrest of the Allobrogians – nor probably anything else – and came willingly. Cicero told how he had been informed that one of the conspirators, Cethegus, had been stockpiling weapons for the revolution, he orders Caius Sulpicius, one of the praetors, to search his house. Surprise! Surprise! A hoard of swords and daggers was found.

Now, before the senate, each of the accused acknowledged his seal on his own letter. One letter by a young patrician named Cethegus was addressed to the Allobrogian people and their senate. In it, Cethegus said that “he would carry out his promises to their envoys and asked them to execute the orders he was transmitting through them.” There was no confirmation of what was claimed he meant by this: that he was asking the Gauls to send him a troop of cavalry for the uprising. Obviously, they would not have had time to get back to their homes and send any cavalry in time for the planned uprising, but nobody brought up that point. Cethegus fell silent after reading his letter aloud to all and Cicero exulted that he was obviously “overwhelmed and stricken by the force of conscience.” By now I’m sure the reader has figured out that Cicero wouldn’t know conscience if it jumped up and hit him on the head. The more likely explanation for the youth’s silence was due probably to the fact that he was, indeed, engaged in some kind of conspiracy against the authorities of the Republic, but not necessarily that which Cicero proclaimed; and secondly, the overwhelming awareness that any defense against Cicero was doomed. The other letters were also equally vague in precise details of “criminal intent.” One is reminded of the numerous events in the current US “War on Terror” where FBI agents have infiltrated and radicalized small groups of disaffected individuals, giving them plans and weapons, setting them up, effectively, and then trumpeting loudly the “discovery” of an eeevil terr’ist plot!

One of those who was arrested that morning was Lentulus, a patrician who had just won the election to praetor. He was the husband of Julia, the widow of Marcus Antonius, deceased brother to Cicero’s colleague consul. She was also sister to Lucius Caesar and cousin to Julius Caesar. He had an interesting history that we’ll come to further on.

Lentulus spoke up to question the Gauls with obvious assurance that he would be able to prove his innocence by their responses. This assurance seems to have been dashed which suggests that the Gauls were coached about what they were to say. They had their answers memorized. They told Lentulus that he “had assured them that the Sibylline books and soothsayers had promised him that he was that third member of the Cornelian clan to whom the rule and the sway of this city was fated to come; Cinna and Sulla [both Cornelians] had preceded him.” Lentulus, they said, had urged on them the suitability of the year (63) for a violent revolution since it was exactly 20 years since the burning of the Capitol and ten since “the acquittal of the virgins.” Keep this matter of the “acquittal of the virgins in mind as it is important.

Lentulus had also sent a letter to Catilina which Volturcius was to deliver in which he wrote: “You will know who I am from him whom I am sending to you. Be brave and consider into what situation you have brought yourself; and see what you now need and take care to secure for yourself the aid of all, even of the lowest classes.” That was it. Rather vague. Not only that, but the first line of the letter contradicted the idea of a carefully coordinated conspiracy. It sounded partly like a letter of supportive encouragement to a man who was down and out, and certainly it shows awareness of the fact that Cicero was intending to send troops to destroy Catiline and he was being warned to prepare his defense. Bottom line is, however, it was not any sort of clear evidence of a planned, coordinated attack on Rome, the planned assassinations of the optimates, or the “destruction of the world.” It sounds rather more like a conspiracy of defense against Cicero and his gang.

However, despite the fact that none of this so-called evidence would have stood up for an instant in a court of law, the atmosphere of the senate, where everyone was afraid of who Cicero would accuse next, induced many of them to just agree with him, not question too closely. When Volturcius declared that Lentulus had also entrusted him with an oral message urging Catilina to arm slaves for an attack on Rome to be coordinated with the parricides of the patrician youth, Lucius Caesar, Lentulus’ brother-in-law rose and expressed outrage. His grandfather, Flaccus, the colleague and compatriot of Gaius Gracchus, had been murdered on the orders of a consul and also his uncle, Flaccus’ young son who had been taken as a hostage, was murdered. So, even though he appeared to be expressing his outrage toward Lentulus, he actually managed to expose the fact that Cicero was following the example of those who had lynched Gaius Gracchus and his followers. He probably didn’t even make the correct connection in his own mind.

Once the now-deposed praetor and the three other prisoners had been led away, senators outdid themselves to give further evidence of a conspiracy and to heap praises on Cicero for exposing it. The consul-elect, Silanus, declared that Cethegus had named to him three senators of consular and four of praetorian rank, who had been marked for death. Nobody asked him why he didn’t reveal that sooner. The corrupt Piso confirmed this account. A corona civica was proposed to honor Cicero and Caesar’s cousin, Lucius, moved to grant a thanksgiving celebration for Cicero, the first that had ever been given to a man in a civil capacity. Cotta declared that Cicero, through his “courage, counsel, forethought… had saved the city from fire, the citizens from slaughter, and Italy from war.”

Caesar was silent. It would have been suicide for him to speak up in this frenzy of the corrupt outdoing one another in gratitude that they had not been caught in Cicero’s dragnet. But if there were any senators with firing neurons, they would have been able to understand that all that had happened here was that a bumbling group of would-be rebels playing at conspiracy had been manipulated by agents provocateurs and had fallen into Cicero’s trap. In the end, after breaking up the world-destroying conspiracy, only nine men were arrested. The whole situation is so disgusting it’s actually hard to write about it. But it is also important because the very same conditions and actions prevail in our world today. It behooves us to know what happened to Rome as a consequence of this type of rule by oligarchy.

As it happened, that very day, Cicero had arranged in advance for the unveiling of a new statue of Jupiter so the crowd that had assembled for this event became the audience for Cicero’s Third Catilinarian Oration in which he reported on his great achievements of the previous night and morning to the people, and ascribed the disclosure of the conspiracy to the god himself. Certain that the relief that everyone felt now that the danger was over would prevent anyone from questioning into it too closely, the newly acclaimed “Father of his country” declared: (Brace yourself: you may need an anti-emetic for this one.)

You see this day, O Romans, the republic, and all your lives, your goods, your fortunes, your wives and children, this home of most illustrious empire, thus most fortunate and beautiful city, by the great love of the immortal gods for you, by my labours and counsels and dangers, snatched from fire and sword, and almost from the very jaws of fate, and preserved and restored to you. …

…we have extinguished flames which were almost laid under and placed around the temples and shrines, and houses and walls of the whole city; we have turned the edge of swords drawn against the republic, and have turned aside their points from your throats. …

…all this has been displayed in the senate, and made manifest, and detected by me, I will now explain it briefly, that you, O citizens, that are as yet ignorant of it, and are in suspense, may be able to see how great the danger was, how evident and by what means it was detected and arrested.

Skip here his recitation of the events which is heavily larded with how clever and dedicated he was and all that. Essentially, what it amounts to is that this is the main – if not only – first-hand account of the events we have. Later historians add a few details which suggests that there were other accounts, but they have not survived. But, in the main, the accounts tally with one another.

At this point, he adds more justification for running Catiline out of town even though the clear and obvious reason was to get him out from under indictment and the possibility of a trial:

Unless I had driven this man, so active, so ready, so audacious, so crafty, so vigilant in wickedness, so industrious in criminal exploits, from his plots within the city to the open warfare of the camp, (I will express my honest opinion, O citizens,) I should not easily have removed from your necks so vast a weight of evil. He would not have determined on the Saturnalia 4 to massacre you he would not have announced the destruction of the republic, and even the day of its doom so long beforehand,—he would never have allowed his seal and his letters, the undeniable witnesses of his guilt, to be taken…But if Catiline had remained in the city to this day, although, as long as he was so, I met all his designs and withstood them; yet, to say the least, we should have had to fight with him, and should never, while he remained as an enemy in the city, have delivered the republic from such dangers, with such ease, such tranquillity, and such silence.

In other words, Cicero needed more time to conduct his sting operation and to manufacture the evidence. Next, he takes off on the portents. Cicero was no dummy. He fully understood, as did the majority of the Roman elite, that religion was the main means of controlling the masses.

… all these things, O Romans, have been so managed by men that they appear to have been done and provided for by the order and design of the immortal gods… because the direction of such weighty affairs scarcely appears capable of having been carried out by human wisdom; so, too, they have at this time so brought us present aid and assistance, that we could almost behold them without eyes. For to say nothing of those things, namely, the firebrands seen in the west in the night time, and the heat of the atmosphere,—to pass over the falling of thunderbolts and the earthquakes,—to say nothing of all the other portents which have taken place in such number during my consulship, that the immortal gods themselves have been seeming to predict what is now taking place…

It obviously never occurred to him that such portents could be read entirely the other way!

For you recollect, I suppose, when Cotta and Torquatus were consuls,[65 BC, just two years previously ] that many towers in the Capitol were struck with lightning, when both the images of the immortal gods were moved, and the statues of many ancient men were thrown down, and the brazen tablets on which the laws were written were melted. Even Romulus, who built this city, was struck, which, you recollect, stood in the Capitol, a gilt statue, little and sucking, and clinging to the teats of the wolf. And when at this time the soothsayers were assembled out of all Etruria, they said that slaughter, and conflagration, and the overthrow of the laws, and civil and domestic war, and the fall of the whole city and empire was at hand, unless the immortal gods, being appeased in every possible manner, by their own power turned aside, as I may say, the very fates themselves.

Therefore, according to their answers, games were celebrated for ten days, nor was anything omitted which might tend to the appeasing of the gods. And they enjoined also that we should make a greater statue of Jupiter, and place it in a lofty situation, and (contrary to what had been done before) turn it towards the east.

And now, of course, Cicero is dedicating the required statue and attributing his successful (almost) saving of the republic to the gods themselves. Masterful touch. He then proceeds with further flaming and defaming of Catiline, claiming he has saved everyone from the world-wide conflagration they were planning, and, by cracky! Jupiter himself resisted them!

And if I were to say that it was I who resisted them, I should take too much to myself and ought not to be borne. He—he, Jupiter, resisted them, He determined that the Capitol should be safe, he saved these temples, he saved this city, he saved all of you. It is under the guidance of the immortal gods, O Romans, that I have cherished the intention and desires which I have, and have arrived at such undeniable proofs. … you have been snatched from a most cruel and miserable destruction, and you have been snatched from it without slaughter, without bloodshed, without an army, without a battle. You have conquered in the garb of peace, with me in the garb of peace for your only general and commander.

Then he reminds them of Sulla, Cinna and Marius, and the bloody times of the previous generation:

…all this place was crowded with heaps of carcasses and flowed with the blood of citizens… these dissensions, O Romans, were such as concerned not the destruction of the republic, but only a change in the constitution…yet all those dissensions, none of which aimed at the destruction of the republic, were such that they were to be terminated not by a reconciliation and concord, but only by internecine war among the citizens.

…in this war alone, the greatest and most cruel in the memory of man … I have so managed matters, O Romans that you should all be preserved in safety; and though your enemies had thought that only such a number of the citizens would be left as had held out against an interminable massacre and only so much of the city as the flames could not devour, I have preserved both the city and the citizens unhurt and undiminished. I ask from you no reward of virtue, no badge of honour, no monument of my glory, beyond the everlasting recollection of this day. In your minds I wish all my triumphs, all my decorations of honour; the monuments of my glory, the badges of my renown, to be stored and laid up. Nothing voiceless can delight me, nothing silent,—nothing, in short, such as even those who are less worthy can obtain. In your memory, O Romans, my name shall be cherished, in your discourses it shall grow, in the monuments of your letters it shall grow old and strengthen; and I feel assured that the same day which I hope will be for everlasting; will be remembered for ever, so as to tend both to the safety of the city and the recollection of my consulship; and that it will be remembered that there existed in this city at the same time two citizens, one of whom limited the boundaries of your empire only by the regions of heaven, (i.e. Pompey) not by those of the earth, while the other preserved the abode and home of that same empire i.e. Cicero).

It’s enough to make one lose their dinner precipitately. Apparently, being the mouthpiece and tool of the “seven tyrants” within the senate was too confining; he wanted to share the empire with Pompey. And then, as though he were Jupiter himself, he closed his oration with: “you may dwell in everlasting peace.”

He then plants a seed that we will see bearing fruit on the very next day:

I must live among those whom I have defeated and subdued… it is your business, O Romans, to take care, if their good deeds are a benefit to others, that mine shall never be an injury to me. For that the wicked and profligate designs of audacious men shall not be able to injure you, I have taken care; it is your business to take care that they do not injure me. …O Romans, since it is now night ,worship that Jupiter, the guardian of this city and of yourselves, and depart to your homes; and defend those homes, though the danger is now removed, with guard and watch as you did last night, That you shall not have to do so long, and that you shall enjoy perpetual tranquillity, shall, O Romans, be my care.

What Cicero didn’t see was that he would very quickly be subjected to mounting disdain because of his egomaniacal declarations. The optimates had used him as long as he was useful, he almost got out of control because of his demanding ego, and it was unlikely that he would ever after be accepted into their private circles or mansions as an equal. What was worse, a certain absent warlord who had spies everywhere would never forgive Cicero for claiming to be on an equal level with Pompeius Magnus.

Interestingly, Plutarch, though he is thoroughly convinced that Cicero was the good guy who saved the Republic from the evil depredations of a terrifying conspiracy, takes some time to explain that Cicero had this really repellant habit of self-glorification.

At this time, therefore, his authority was very great in the city; but he created himself much envy, and offended very many, not by any evil action, but because he was always lauding and magnifying himself. For neither senate, nor assembly of the people, nor court of judicature could meet, in which he was not heard to talk of Catiline and Lentulus. Indeed, he also filled his books and writings with his own praises, to such an excess as to render a style, in itself most pleasant and delightful, nauseous and irksome to his hearers; this ungrateful humor, like a disease, always cleaving to him.

Plutarch also includes some anecdotal evidence of Cicero’s sarcasm and biting wit that certainly did not become a man who professed to adhere to high ideals.

Another illustration of his love of praise is the way in which sometimes, to make his orations more striking, he neglected decorum and dignity. When Munatius, who had escaped conviction by his advocacy, immediately prosecuted his friend Sabinus, he said in the warmth of his resentment, “Do you suppose you were acquitted for your own merits, Munatius, and was it not that I so darkened the case, that the court could not see your guilt?” When from the Rostra he had made an eulogy on Marcus Crassus, with much applause, and within a few days after again as publicly reproached him, Crassus called to him, and said, “Did not you yourself two days ago, in this same place, commend me?” “Yes,” said Cicero, “I exercised my eloquence in declaiming upon a bad subject.” At another time, Crassus had said that no one of his family had ever lived beyond sixty years of age, and afterwards denied it, and asked, “What should put it into my head to say so?” “It was to gain the people’s favor,” answered Cicero; “you knew how glad they would be to hear it.” …

When Vatinius, who had swellings in his neck, [goiter] was pleading a cause, he called him the tumid orator; and having been told by some one that Vatinius was dead, on hearing presently after that he was alive, “May the rascal perish,” said he, “for his news not being true.”…

… he excited much ill feeling by his readiness to attack any one for the sake of a jest. … Meeting one day Voconius with his three very ugly daughters, he quoted the verse, “He reared a race without Apollo’s leave.” …By this habit he made himself odious with many people.

One certainly has to take Plutarch with a lot of salt, but often enough, one finds that his sources preserve some accurate and insightful perspectives.

Cicero had to execute his prisoners, obviously, and without bringing them to trial where uncomfortable truths might come out and it appears from the seeds about gods and portents that he planted in his Third Oration, that he had something planned. I don’t think that his speech on that day and what happened that night were unrelated nor was it a “miracle.”

 

[Laura]

THE BONA DEA MIRACLE

That very night, of December 3rd, 63 BC, Cicero, after ordering more troops for the garrison on the Capitol and the guard in the Forum, went to temporary accommodations in the city to sleep. The reason for this was that his wife, Terentia, was holding the annual festival of the Bona Dea at their home and this festival was reserved for women only (obviously, the women of noble rank). Late at night, Terentia and the vestal virgins who assisted at the secret ceremonies, went to Cicero at his temporary quarters to awaken him with astonishing news. It seems that, after the sacrifice the women had performed, a flame had suddenly shot up from the dead ashes terrifying the women. However, the vestal virgins, of which Terentia’s sister was one, declared that Terentia, “a woman of no mild spirit nor without natural courage”, should go immediately and tell Cicero to “carry out his resolutions in behalf of the country since the goddess was giving him a great light on this path to safety and glory.”

Here’s Plutarch’s version:

It being evening, and the common people in crowds expecting without, Cicero went forth to them, and told them what was done, [The Third Oration where he showers himself with praises] and then, attended by them, went to the house of a friend and near neighbor; for his own was taken up by the women, who were celebrating with secret rites the feast of the goddess whom the Romans call the Good, and the Greeks, the Women’s goddess. For a sacrifice is annually performed to her in the consul’s house, either by his wife or mother, in the presence of the vestal virgins. And having got into his friend’s house privately, a few only being present, he began to deliberate how he should treat these men.

The severest, and the only punishment fit for such heinous crimes, he was somewhat shy and fearful of inflicting, as well from the clemency of his nature, as also lest he should be thought to exercise his authority too insolently, and to treat too harshly men of the noblest birth and most powerful friendships in the city; and yet, if he should use them more mildly, he had a dreadful prospect of danger from them. For there was no likelihood, if they suffered less than death, they would be reconciled, but rather, adding new rage to their former wickedness, they would rush into every kind of audacity, while he himself, whose character for courage already did not stand very high with the multitude, would be thought guilty of the greatest cowardice and want of manliness.

Whilst Cicero was doubting what course to take, a portent happened to the women in their sacrificing. For on the altar, where the fire seemed wholly extinguished, a great and bright flame issued forth from the ashes of the burnt wood; at which others were affrighted, but the holy virgins called to Terentia, Cicero’s wife, and bade her haste to her husband, and command him to execute what he had resolved for the good of his country, for the goddess had sent a great light to the increase of his safety and glory. Terentia, therefore, as she was otherwise in her own nature neither tender-hearted nor timorous, but a woman eager for distinction (who, as Cicero himself says, would rather thrust herself into his public affairs, than communicate her domestic matters to him), told him these things, and excited him against the conspirators. So also did Quintus his brother, and Publius Nigidius, one of his philosophical friends, whom he often made use of in his greatest and most weighty affairs of state.

This tale of the “sign from the goddess” was well known as a topos of Greek history: Plutarch recounts a similar tale in a different context. If this actually happened, Cicero was very familiar with Greek history must have been inspired by earlier legends to concoct this tale of a miracle and brought his wife and sister-in-law into the plot. Based on what we have learned thus far about Cicero, it is entirely in keeping with his style of just making stuff up when it suited him, and especially when it showed him in a glorious light.

Dio Cassius gives a slightly different version of the story as follows:

Now many slaves and freemen as well, some through fear and others out of pity for Lentulus and the rest, made preparations to deliver them all forcibly and rescue them from death. Cicero learned of this beforehand and occupied the Capitol and the Forum by night with a garrison. At dawn he received some divine inspiration to hope for the best; for in the course of sacrifices conducted in his house by the Vestals in behalf of the populace, the fire, contrary to custom, shot up to a very great height. Accordingly, he ordered the praetors to administer the oath of enlistment to the populace, in case there should be any need of soldiers; meanwhile he himself convened the senate…

I think that, between the two versions, we can accept that this Bona Dea Miracle was probably created and utilized by Cicero – with the connivance of his wife, Terentia, and sister-in-law, the Vestal Fabia - for the manipulation of the population, though of course, such things would have carried no weight with the cynical senate. Further, we note that after the “sign from heaven”, Cicero ordered the praetors to administer the oath of enlistment. Whether this was done to increase the anxiety of the population by making them think that an enemy was approaching, or whether it was done because Cicero was afraid of public reaction to what he had determined to do, is hard to tell; perhaps a bit of both.

The meeting to decide the fate of the prisoners was to be held in the Temple of Concord which, in Cicero’s mind probably represented his great achievement: bringing together the equestrian class (to which he belonged) with the patrician class (to which he aspired to belong) in “concord” against a common enemy, i.e. the masses of ordinary people who were suffering under the rule of the oligarchy. He was to hark back to this alleged achievement of his over and over again in his letters and speeches for the rest of his life. Indeed, the wealthy elite can stop their infighting when threatened by the loss of their power and possessions by the great proletariat on which they fasten like parasites, but it is certainly not any sort of great “achievement of concord” as Cicero represented it to be nor is it any sort of model for any subsequent democratic governments to hold up as virtuous. It was purely and simply demagogic BS.

There was also a pragmatic reason for holding this meeting in the Temple of Concord: it was more easily defended and it appears that Cicero, even though he was determined to pursue his glorification by shedding blood, was still a bit nervous about the reaction of the people. He had his personal bodyguard, a host of equestrians under the command of his friend, Atticus which is another point that suggests that Cicero knew very well what he was doing. In former times, consuls acting with the authority of the SCU had, indeed, executed those who were seen as enemies of the state, but it had nearly always been done in the context of open fighting, rioting, and when such rebels were clearly seen to be posing a serious threat in physical terms. What had never been done before was cold-blooded extra-judicial execution of Roman citizens who were already under guard and in a situation where a trial could very easily have been conducted. In no way could what Cicero proposed to do be excused as a “lynching in the heat of the moment.”

Further, Caesar’s recent dramatic demonstration via the trial of Rabirius probably made Cicero even more aware of the fact that what he wanted so desperately to do – commit murder for his own glory – could backfire on him. The senate was not a court, but if he could get a consensus of the members to support his action, then he would feel that he had moral force behind him.

Cicero opened his meeting by reminding the senators and all the equestrians listening at the door and passing information to the crowd outside, of the intention of the conspirators to “burn the city, to murder all of the senators, to welcome Catilina” as dictator and the more recent information, to seduce the Gauls into becoming involved in rebellion. He reminded them that they must act decisively and without delay. And, to cover his backside he announced that he was going to “refer the whole matter to you… as if it were still an open question, both for your judgment on the deed and your decision about the punishment. To indemnify himself against any possible misrepresentation by anyone, he had shorthand clerks in the room recording every word of the deliberations.

The debate opened when Cicero asked Silanus, the consul elect, to give his opinion. Silanus was, recall, the husband of Caesar’s mistress, Servilia, who was also sister to Cato. It was customary to get the opinion of the men who would be taking office shortly since they would be the ones who might have to carry out measures decided at end of the consular year meetings. Silanus rose and declared that the rebels should suffer the “ultimate penalty.” This was interpreted to mean “execution” and certainly, all the other senators took it that way.

Next, the other consul elect was polled and after him, the 14 ex-consuls, followed by the eight praetors-elect, all of whom – except Caesar - agreed with Silanus. When it came time for Caesar to give his opinion, it was probably assumed, based on his silence the past few days and the fact that he was present, while Crassus, the other former supporter of Catiline, was not, that he would give energetic approval as proof of his loyalty to the Republic since that was the way Cicero had framed the conflict which made it very difficult for anyone to express any doubts at all about the claims of dire threats to the commonwealth.

 

[Laura]

Never was Caesar’s conscience more clearly exposed than at this moment when it would have been better if he had remained silent or at least assented with a murmur. In recent days, Caesar’s loyalty had been attacked, he had been accused of being a party to the conspiracy, Cicero had vouched for him and he had navigated that minefield. Caesar has been described by gentlemen historians as being a headline grabber, but that has generally been due to the hostile influence of the historical sources that have come down to us. Yes, he put on the Rabirius trial drama to make the point about the questionable legality of the SCU and executions of citizens without the right to appeal, and was wildly popular because he criticized the arbitrary use of power, but that was in an entirely different context. Here he was surrounded by hostility toward the prisoners and, more than that, there were hundreds of armed equestrians at the beck and call of Cicero and a highly hystericized crowd outside.

It seems that there was a line in Caesar that could not be crossed even by himself. As a very young man he had stood alone against the dictator, Sulla, and had been forced to flee for his life. He had been powerless then, but now, he was not entirely without power and influence. The text of his speech has not survived except in a condensed and probably redacted version given to us by Sallust which is worth reading in its entirety even if we know it has been “Sallust-ized.”

Whoever, gentlemen, is deliberating upon a difficult question ought to clear his mind of hatred and affection and of anger and compassion. It is not easy to discern the truth when one’s view is obstructed by such emotions, and all experience proves that those who yield to passion never make politic decisions. If you concentrate your mind on a problem, it can exert its full powers; once let passion come in, it will take control of you and reduce your mind to impotence. There are plenty of examples that I could cite of kings and people who have allowed anger or pity to lead them into error. But I would rather mention some cases in which our own ancestors, by controlling their emotions, have acted wisely and properly.

Even though Caesar has often been described as an Epicurean, his opening paragraph is much more Stoic than anything the self-proclaimed Stoic, Cato, ever said. It is especially Posidonian Stoicism in the views about emotion which we can know because the great physician, Galen, preserved some of Posidonius’ writings on this topic. Here, Caesar clearly exhibits influences of Stoicism: Stoic ethics taught freedom from 'passion' by following 'reason.' The Stoics did not seek to extinguish emotions; rather, they sought to transform them by a resolute 'askēsis' that enables a person to develop clear judgment and inner calm. Logic, reflection, and concentration were the methods of such self-discipline. Caesar’s point was that the Roman Senate was too august a body to allow itself to be driven by emotion and he was saying, carefully, that he was fully aware that Cicero was manipulating people by manipulating their emotions. In fact, he was telling the Senate outright: you are being manipulated!

In the war which Rome fought against King Perseus of Macedon, the powerful and wealthy state of Rhodes, which our support had made what it was, proved disloyal and turned against us. At the end of the war, when the matter came up for discussion, the Romans feared that if they annexed the island it might be said that they had gone to war to enrich themselves rather than to punish King Perseus for his wrongful conduct; so they let the Rhodians go unpunished. Similarly, in the whole series of wars with Carthage, in spite of many outrages committed by the Carthaginians in time of peace or during a truce, they never retaliated in kind, even when they had the chance. Such conduct they regarded as unworthy of Romans, even if it might be justifiable as a reprisal.

I would suggest that Caesar’s examples of the actions of the Roman ancestors were carefully selected to appeal to his listeners though certainly, he must have known that many things the Romans did during the Punic Wars were highly questionable. Also notice that his selected examples highlight some things that he may have been seeing in the Catiline case: greed and vengeance and allowed him to use these terms deliberately. But again, he was stressing very Stoic ethics which stress the idea "Follow where reason leads."

You also, gentlemen, must take care that the guilt of Publius Lentulus and the others does not outweigh your sense of what is fitting, and that you do not indulge your resentment at the expense of your reputation. If a punishment can be found that is really adequate to their crimes, I am willing to support a departure from precedent; but if the enormity of their wickedness is such that no one could devise a fitting penalty, then I think we should content ourselves with those provided by the laws.

He mentions resentment against Publius Cornelius Lentulus as a particular driver. Lentulus had been quaestor to Sulla in 81 BC and was accused of squandering the public money (i.e. appropriating it to his own increase in wealth). Lentulus was praetor in 75, governor of Sicily in 74, and consul in 71. He was expelled from the senate for immorality along with quite a few others in 70 at the time of the five-year census when Roman citizens were assigned rank and position according to criteria of wealth, morality, etc. He had begun to work his way back into the good graces of the oligarchy and his recent election as a quaestor, on which campaign he spent a lot of money as all Roman politicians were obliged to do, makes it unlikely that he would have been involved in a conspiracy to overthrow the government. But it is also likely that, as Sulla’s quaestor, he had, indeed, taken advantage of the Sullan dictatorship and was guilty of confiscating the property of others, and there was a great deal of resentment against him. Cicero, of course, would have cause to regret this day’s work after Caesar’s assassination because Lentulus was Mark Anthony’s step-father and Anthony was not committed to clementia (forgiveness) as Caesar was; Cicero lost his head.

Most of the previous speakers have delivered elaborate and impressive speeches in which they deplored the miserable condition of our country. They have dwelt upon the horrors of war and the fate that awaits the vanquished: how girls and boys are ravished, children torn from their parent’ arms, wives subjected to the lusts of conquerors, temples and homes pillaged; how amid fire and slaughter, with weapons, corpses, and blood on every side, a cry of universal mourning goes up. But what, in God’s name, was the purpose of all this eloquence? Was it to make you detest the conspiracy?

Next, Caesar pokes fun at Cicero and his terrorizing tactic, though very carefully and not singling him out. He says “most of the previous speakers have delivered elaborate and impressive speeches… dwelt upon the horrors of war… girls and boys ravished… lusts of conqueror… pillaged… fire and slaughter… corpses… blood on every side… cry of universal mourning…” and then he reveals a bit of exasperation: “What, in God’s name, was the purpose of all this…?!” And then he provides the answer: “…to make you detest the conspiracy.”

As if a man whom the grisly reality has failed to move could be roused by an eloquent speech!

Here Caesar makes reference to his own experiences during the Sullan terror. I think that every one of his listeners must have understood this remark, that he knew all too well the grisly reality of those times not only from the experiences of his family members and friends, but his own flight to avoid assassination.

That can never be: no mortal man minimizes his own wrongs; many, indeed, resent them more than they ought. But not everyone, gentlemen, is equally free to show his resentment. If humble men, who pass their lives in obscurity, are provoked by anger to do wrong, few know of it, because few know anything about such unimportant people. But men in positions of great power live, as it were, on an eminence, and their actions are known to all the world. The higher our station, the less is our freedom of action. We must avoid partiality and hatred, and above all anger; for what in others would be called merely an outburst of temper, in those who bear rule is called arrogance and cruelty.

Again, Caesar’s advocacy of the Stoic view of emotions emerges: that one must live according to reason and the more authority you have, the wider your sphere of influence, the more responsible you are to strive to be free of the passions, bearing in mind that the ancient meaning of 'passion' was "anguish" or "suffering"; peace of mind was understood in the ancient sense—being objective or having "clear judgment" and the maintenance of equanimity in the face of life's highs and lows. A primary aspect of Stoicism involves improving the individual's ethical and moral well-being: "Virtue consists in a will that is in agreement with Nature." This principle also applies to the realm of interpersonal relationships; "to be free from anger, envy, and jealousy."

He also reveals the Stoic attitude toward learning about human nature. Caesar notes: ‘no mortal man minimizes his own wrongs; many… resent them more than they ought… “ That is certainly a description of Cicero.

For my own part, gentlemen, I think that any torture would be less than these men’s crimes deserve. But most people remember only what happens last: when criminals are brought to justice, they forget their guilt and talk only of their punishment, if it is of unusual severity.

Notice that he separates the crimes from the men. In no way does he say that these men deserve torture because he clearly doesn’t believe that they have committed the crimes of which they are accused though he cannot come right out and say so. He then gives fair warning, revealing his deep insight into social psychology: “most people remember only what happens last: when criminals are brought to justice, they forget their guilt and talk only of their punishment.”

I am sure that Decimus Silanus spoke on this serious matter with the best interests of his country at heart, and not from a desire to please anyone or to gratify feelings of personal enmity; for I know him as both a gallant patriot and a man of wise discretion. Yet his proposal strikes me – I will not say, as harsh, for in dealing with such men nothing could properly be described as harsh – but as out of keeping with the traditions of our Republic.

Surely Silanus, it must have been either fear or a sense of outrage that impelled you, a consul elect, to suggest a form of punishment that is without precedent. Fear can be left out of the question, especially as, thanks to the precautions taken by our distinguished consul, we have such strong guards under arms.

Taking the consul-elect to task, Caesar is almost sarcastic here about the impressive precautions that Cicero had taken obviously for the purpose of creating a fearful state in everyone. Caesar turns this around and points out that nobody should be afraid at all because Cicero has done such a good job!

As regards the penalty you proposed, it would be relevant to observe that to men in grief and wretchedness death comes as a release from suffering, not as a punishment to be endured, because it puts an end to all the ills that flesh is heir to, and beyond it there is no place for either tears or rejoicing.

This remark is taken as evidence of Caesar’s epicurean philosophy tendencies but I disagree. The Stoics believed very similarly, that Individual souls are perishable by nature, and can be "transmuted and diffused, assuming a fiery nature by being received into the Seminal Reason (logos spermatikos) of the Universe." (Marcus Aurelius).

I’ve read a number of analyses of Caesar’s alleged beliefs which claim that Stoicism was alien to Caesar, and Cato is held up as the prime example of Stoicism. It may be true that Cato followed a particular variation of Roman Stoicism, but a careful study of what little we can learn about the Stoics and the foundations of their ideas lead me to suggest otherwise: that Caesar was more Stoic than Epicurean and Cato was not a genuine Stoic, in the terms of the early Stoics, at all. One can easily tell this by reading an imaginary dialogue that Cicero puts in the mouth of Cato which describes a static universe which was not at all the world as described by the Stoics, based on the doctrine of constant change as explicated by Heraclitus.

In fact, it could be said that Caesar’s ideas followed the line that everything in the universe is in constant change, including the lives of men, and the processes of society and government. Further, Caesar was clearly not a follower of the Epicurean preference for a life of withdrawal and contemplation, rejecting political and military activities. The Stoics, on the other hand, taught social responsibility, that all people are manifestations of the one universal spirit and should help one another. In the Discourses, Epictetus comments on man's relationship with the world: "Each human being is primarily a citizen of his own commonwealth; but he is also a member of the great city of gods and men, whereof the city political is only a copy."

Caesar next moves onto legal argumentation, again taking a somewhat sarcastic tone:

But what I want to ask is, Why in heaven’s name did you not also propose that the prisoners should be flogged before being executed? Was it because the Porcian law forbids it? But there are other laws which provide that convicted citizens shall not be put to death, but shall be permitted to go into exile. Was it, then, because flogging is a severer punishment than death? But what penalty can be regarded as harsh or excessive for men found guilty of such a crime? If however it was because you thought flogging a lighter punishment, how can it be logical to respect the law in a comparatively small matter when you have disregarded it in a more important point?

Here, Caesar nails them all to the wall, especially considering the legal drama he had put on some months earlier when he was invoking an ancient law that sentenced a man to flogging and death by crucifixion.

But his next point is the most crucial: setting a precedent that will come back to bite.

It may be asked: Who will take exception to any sentence that is passed upon traitors? The lapse of time and the caprice of fortune, which controls the destinies of all men, will one day produce a change of feeling. These particular men will have richly deserved whatever happens to them. But you, gentlemen, must consider the precedent that you establish for others. All bad precedents originate from measures good in themselves. When power passes into the hands of ignorant or unworthy men, the precedent you establish by inflicting an extraordinary penalty on guilty men who deserve it will be used against innocent men who do not deserve it.

There was more to this argument than just the idea that the precedent might be used in the distant future; Caesar was giving a clear and direct warning: you are in power today, but what about tomorrow? What you do today can be used against YOU. Caesar gives an example:

The Spartans, for example, set up in Athens, when they had conquered it, an oligarchy of thirty members. These men began by executing without trial notorious malefactors whom everyone loathed, and the people rejoiced and said it was well done. After a time they began to act more and more irresponsibly, killing good and bad alike as the whim took them, and intimidating all the rest. Thus Athens was oppressed and enslaved, and paid a heavy price for its foolish rejoicing.

Everyone knew what happened to the so-called Thirty Tyrants: they didn’t last long.

In our own times, when the victorious Sulla ordered the execution of [L. Junius Brutus] Damasippus and other adventurers whom national calamities had raised to high positions, who did not approve his action? The men were criminals and trouble-makers, whose revolutionary intrigues had harassed the state, and it was agreed that they deserved to die. But those executions were the first step that led to a ghastly calamity. For before long, if anyone coveted a man’s mansion or villa – or in the end merely his household plate or wearing-apparel – he found means to have him put on the list of proscribed persons. So those who rejoiced at the death of Damasippus were soon haled off to execution themselves, and the killing did not stop till Sulla had glutted all his followers with riches.

Here, Caesar indirectly invokes Pompey who was a follower of Sulla. He may also be reminding them that another Lentulus who was a partisan of Pompey’s, introduced a bill to validate grants of citizenship by Pompey in Hispania. He and his colleague also ensured that no Roman citizen in the provinces could be tried in absentia on a capital charge. He also proposed a bill for recovering payment from those who had bought the confiscated property of those who suffered under the Sullan proscriptions; Lucius Cornelius Sulla later remitted this bill. Further, this other Lentulus became one of the censors in 70 BC who purged the senate, removing some sixty-four senators, among them a number of individuals connected to the trial of Oppianicus, as well as some important individuals such as Gaius Antonius Hybrida and Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura.

We can also note here that, in 76 BC, Hybrida had been prosecuted by Caesar for his activities in Greece under Sulla: plundering the countryside and sacking several temples and holy places. It was the rumors of his plundering and atrocities committed on the local population, which included maiming and torture, that earned him the nickname Hybrida ("half-beast"). He escaped punishment because he successfully appealed to the people's tribunes.

So it is interesting that Antonius Hybrida was Cicero’s colleague consul, while Lentulus Sura was a prisoner whose extrajudicial assassination Cicero was seeking as a Catilinarian conspiracist.

 

[Laura]

I would like to take a moment here to digress on the topic of Hybrida by bringing in Dio Cassius’ version of the tale. Just hold on to Caesar’s last words above and we’ll come back to him after a short interlude.

Obviously, Dio (AD 155 – 235) was writing some time later and his account is somewhat confused both in terms of the events and chronology, and he obviously includes many of the rumors of the time as fact, but the general collection of data – though in disarray - seems to be good enough which makes one wonder about the things he introduces that are not in the other sources. First, he mentions the portents of the year of Cicero’s consulship during which time Pompey had concluded the wars in the East but was going about cementing all his clientships before returning to Rome:

Temporarily the Romans had a respite from war for the remainder of the year, so that they even held the co-called augurium salutis after a very long interval. … It was observed on that day of each year on which no army was going out to war, or was preparing itself against any foes, or was fighting a battle. For this reason, amid the constant perils, especially those of civil strife, it was not observed. For it was very difficult for them in any case to determine accurately upon a day free from all such disturbances, and furthermore it would be most absurd, when they were voluntarily causing one another unspeakable woes through party strife and were destined to suffer ills whether they were defeated or victorious, that they should still ask Heaven for safety. Nevertheless, it was in some way possible at that time for the divination to be held; but it did not prove to be regular, since some birds flew up from an unlucky quarter, and so it was repeated.
Other unlucky omens too, occurred. Many thunderbolts fell from a clear sky, the earth was mightily shaken, and human apparitions were visible in many places, and in the west flashes of fire darted up into heaven, so that any one, even a lay-man, was bound to know in advance what was signified by them.

For the tribunes united with Antonius, the consul, who was very much like themselves in character, and one of them supported for office the sons of those exiled by Sulla, while a second wished to grant to Publius Paetus and to Cornelius Sulla, who had been convicted with him, the right to be members of the senate and to hold office; another made a motion for a cancelling of debts, and yet another for allotments of land to be made both in Italy and in the subject territory. These motions were taken in hand betimes by Cicero and those who were of the same mind as he, and were suppressed before any action resulted from them. …

As for Catiline… after collecting a small band, he attempted to slay Cicero and some others of the foremost men on the very day of the election, in order that he might immediately be chosen consul. But he was unable to carry out his plot; for Cicero learned of it in season and informed the senate of it, delivering a severe arraignment of Catiline.

Being unsuccessful, however, in persuading them to vote any of the measures he asked, since his announcement was not regarded as credible and he was suspected of having uttered false charges against the men because of personal enmity, Cicero became frightened, now that he had given Catiline additional provocation. … partly to arouse prejudice against his foes, he wore beneath his clothing a breastplate, which he was careful to allow people to see. For this reason and because in other ways too, some report had spread of a plot against him…

In this way, new consuls were chosen, and Catiline no longer directed his plot in secret or against Cicero … only… but against the whole commonwealth. He assembled from Rome itself the lowest characters … and as many as possible of the allies… promising .. the cancelling of debts, distribution of lands, and everything else by which he was likely to tempt them. Upon the foremost and most powerful of the, including Antonius the consul, he imposed the obligation of taking a monstrous oath. For he sacrificed a boy, and after administering the oath over his vitals, ate these in company with the others. Those who cooperated with him most closely were: in Rome, the consul and Publius Lentulus…

The story of the cannibalistic oath-taking is obviously one of the rumors spread by Cicero et al after the executions so as to blacken Catiline’s name as much as possible. He then describes the incident of the letters delivered to Crassus “and certain others of the optimates” (which would exclude Caesar, I think); the letters predicted an uprising and slaughter which did not occur, as we recall from the discussion above. What Dio says next is curious:

…there was no further sign of revolution in the city, insomuch that Cicero was even falsely charged with blackmail…

He then says that the letter from the “Etruscans”, i.e. Manlius and the veterans who had planned to come to Rome to protest, not to massacre, “confirmed the accusation, and led to the indictment of Catiline for violence.”

Catiline at first welcomed this heartily, as if supported by a good conscience, and pretended to make ready for the trial, even offering to surrender himself to Cicero…

Dio then writes that Catiline did this so he could continue to plan his revolution and meet his co-conspirators in the city which, as noted above, included the consul, Antonius. Dio then says that Catiline met with Antonius and Lentulus at night “at a certain house” and “upbraided them for their timidity and weakness.”

Next, he set forth in detail the many penalties they would suffer if they were detected and the many advantages they would obtain if successful, and by this means encouraged and incited them to such a point that two men promised to rush into Cicero’s house at daybreak and murder him there. This plot, too, was divulged, since Cicero, being a man of great influence, and one who gained many followers through his speeches, either by concil8iation or by intimidation, had many men to report such occurrences to him; and the senate voted that Catiline should leave the city…

The Romans accordingly convicted him of violence, and sent Antonius to the war, being ignorant, of course, of his part in the conspiracy…

Hybrida wasn’t present during this debate because he had been obliged, as consul, to lead an army into Etruria to destroy Catiline – his friend - and his rebels. He didn’t have much heart for it and handed over the command to Marcus Petreius, on the ground of ill health. All of these facts would have been known to Caesar’s listeners.

 

[Laura]

Caesar next reveals the whole situation while, at the same time, making it impossible for Cicero to take exception to his characterization:

I am not afraid that any such action will be taken by Cicero, or in this present age. But in a great nation like ours there are many men, with many different characters. It may be that on some future occasion, when another consul has, like him, an armed force at his disposal, some false report will be accepted as true; and when, with this precedent before him, a consul draws the sword in obedience to a senatorial decree, who will there be to restrain him or to stay his hand?

Caesar has just told us, I think, what he really thought of the whole Catiline Conspiracy: a false report accepted as true because Cicero had the power to force belief on others. He then, quickly, shifts back to history again taking advantage of a general dislike of Greeks prevalent among many Romans at the time.

Our ancestors, gentlemen, never lacked wisdom or courage, and they were never too proud to take over a sound institution from another country. They borrowed most of their armour and weapons from the Samnites, and most of their magisterial insignia from the Etruscans. In short, if they thought anything that an ally or an enemy had was likely to suit them, they enthusiastically adopted it at Rome; for they would rather copy a good thing than be consumed with envy because they had not got it. In this period of imitation they followed the Greek custom of flogging citizens and executing convicted criminals.

However, with the growth of the state, and the development of party strife resulting from the increase of population, innocent people were victimized and other similar abuses grew up. To check them, the Porcian law was enacted, and other laws which allowed condemned persons the alternative of going into exile. This seems to me, gentlemen, a particularly strong argument against our making any innovation. For I cannot but think that there was greater virtue and wisdom in our predecessors, who with such small resources created such a vast empire, than there is in us, who find it as much as we can do to keep what they so nobly won.

Here, Caesar is appealing to the old way of doing things, not making innovations. This was probably directed at Cato whose grandfather, Cato the elder, authorized the Porcian Law which stated that a citizen of Rome could escape a death penalty by voluntary exile. This law was created by a Publius Porcius Laeca and here we note that the meeting of the conspirators was alleged to have taken place in the house of a M. Porcius Laeca.

Caesar now turns to “what to do?” Obviously, you can’t just let them go into exile because they would raise an army and come back. That was evident enough according to the accusations made by Cicero.

Am I suggesting, you will ask, that the prisoners be released to go and swell Catiline’s army? By no means. My advice is that their goods be confiscated, and that they be imprisoned in such towns as are best provided to undertake their custody. Further, that their case shall not thereafter be debated in the Senate or brought before a public assembly; if anyone contravenes this prohibition, the senate should, I suggest, register its opinion that his action will be treasonable and contrary to the public interest.

As you can see, throughout this speech, Caesar was calm and reasonable but the very fact that he was daring to say these things under the circumstances, suggests that it was an act not just of conscience and good statesmanship, but also a warning to the oligarchy and Cicero in particular. His arguments were clear and rational but geared to the audience and the situation. He acknowledged the fact that the situation was new and unusual for never before in the history of the use of the senatus consultum ultimum had it ever been used to carry out cold-blooded execution. For Caesar, the death penalty was completely un-Roman and it was certainly far worse if carried out without a trial. But more than anything, he returned again and again to the fact that this act would set a precedent that, if carried out, the oligarchy would reap the whirlwind.

By his persuasive arguments, Caesar cooled the emotionally over-heated atmosphere. When Caesar was finished speaking, Cicero’s own brother, Quintus, spoke next and fully agreed with this point of view. Silanus, the consul-elect, rose and declared that he had meant “exile” when he said “ultimate punishment.” Many others rose to agree with him. Caesar’s calm rationality was well on its way to saving the day and the constitutional rights of Roman citizens.

 

[Laura]

Continuing this morning so as to get to the Fulvia issue which depends heavily on context. Please note that all I am pasting in here is DRAFT, so don't go ape over typos and stuff. This text hasn't even gone through a first edit yet.
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THE FOURTH CATILINARIAN ORATION

Seeing that his year of work creating a self-glorifying situation was about to melt away, Cicero rose to speak. I’m not going to include all of Cicero’s very lengthy oration here, (the man sure loved to hear himself talk), I’m just going to give you chunks of it. But I do encourage you to read it if you have the stomach for paranoid-histrionic-schizoid rants.

The text of his speech has been preserved as the Fourth Catilinarian Oration. Goldsworthy tells us:

… it would be a mistake to underestimate the rhetorical training and skill of the great orator, and it is likely that even speaking off the cuff, Cicero’s use of language, rhythm and structure were of an exceptionally high order.”

Plutarch says that his voice was : “loud and good, but so harsh and unmanaged that in vehemence and heat of speaking he always raised it to so high a tone, that there seemed to be reason to fear about his health.” He then studied in Athens and was: “diligently exercising himself in declamations, and attending the most celebrated rhetoricians of the time.” When he began his political career as an advocate: “he made no slow or gentle advance to the first place, but shone out in full lustre at once, and far surpassed all the advocates of the bar. At first, it is said, he, as well as Demosthenes, was defective in his delivery, and on that account paid much attention to the instructions, sometimes of Roscious the comedian, and sometimes of Æsop the tragedian.”

Caesar had certainly put the “fear of God” into the senators by reminding them of the many changes in power and how susceptible they all were to being the next group to get the short end of the stick. As I noted above, his examples were well-chosen for just that purpose: there were probably very few in the senate who did not have personal recollections of the horrors of the Sullan regime and how quickly things changed in those days that were just 20 years in the past. And so it was to this point that Cicero addressed himself first. He tried to convince them that, if they agreed with what he wanted to do – commit murder – that it would be him, and only him, who would bear the responsibility.

I see that you are anxious not only for your own danger and that of the republic, but even… for mine. … If indeed, this condition of the consulship has been allotted to me, that I should bear all bitterness, all pains and tortures, I will bear them not only bravely but even cheerfully, provided that by my toils dignity and safety are procured for you and for the Roman people.

He reminds everyone how much he has suffered, how he’s been threatened with death, how much he has borne for their sakes, and all because he is just trying to snatch them all from the horrors of evil terrorists. He also managed to aggrandize himself as the “man of the hour” more or less chosen by god to lead this crusade:

I have borne much, I have conceded much, I have remedied many things with some pain to myself amid the alarm of you all… that I should snatch you, Gentlemen, and the Roman people from miserable slaughter, your wives and children and the vestal virgins from most bitter distress, the temples and shrines of the gods and this most lovely country of all of us, from impious flames, all Italy from war and devastation… why should not I rejoice that my consulship has taken place almost by the express appointment of fate for the preservation of the republic? … preserve yourselves, your wives, your children, and your fortunes; defend the name and safety of the Roman people; cease to spare me, and to think of me.

He goes on a bit more about what a noble, brave and self-sacrificing individual he is and how it is his absolute joy to perish on everyone’s behalf if need be. What one needs to keep in mind is the fact that Cicero is essentially arguing for permission to commit extra-judicial murder. With that in mind, lets look a bit further. Having dispensed with any concern for his own safety, being the noble creature that he was (and having a veritable army outside the door), Cicero now returns to the issue: that the senate needs to decide the fate of the prisoners:

Wherefore, Gentlemen, attend to the safety of the republic; look round upon all the storms which are impending, unless you guard against them. It is not Tiberius Gracchus, who wished to be made a second time a tribune of the people; it is not Caius Gracchus, who endeavoured to excite the partisans of the agrarian law; it is not Lucius Saturninus, who slew Memmius, who is now in some danger, who is now brought before the tribunal of your severity.

Here we recall that the reforms of the Gracchi threatened the holdings of rich landowners in Italy and both were murdered by members of the Roman Senate and supporters of the conservative Optimate faction. Tiberius' own cousin, Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica, the newly-elected Pontifex Maximus, claiming that Tiberius wished to make himself king, demanded that the consul take action. When he refused, Nasica girded his toga over his head, shouting "Now that the consul has betrayed the state, let every man who wishes to uphold the laws follow me!" and led the senators towards Tiberius. In the resulting confrontation, Tiberius was beaten to death with clubs and staves made from benches which lay strewn about. His fellow tribune, Publius Satyreius, dealt the first blow to his head. More than 300 supporters, including Tiberius, were slain by stones and staves, but none by sword, and their bodies thrown into the Tiber.

Cicero is citing cases from fairly recent history that led, ultimately, to the Sullan Terror. Cicero is citing them as cases that are along the same line as the present one, all popular causes, though the Catiline Conspiracy is oh, so much worse! Nevertheless, the point is not lost that what Cicero wants to do is something like “Sulla Lite – only one calorie.” He needs a horrifying threat that he can whip with his little finger and one hand tied behind his back. “See how great I am?” To do this, he keeps building up the conspirators as though they were Attila and his Huns defeated by Dudley Doright. And certainly, his image of both the conspiracy and himself are cartoonish.

An interesting point about the three cases cited, beside the fact that it is a rhetorical “three-set”, is that all of them involved violence committed directly and personally by members of the senate. He forgets to mention, also, that Saturninus was under the protection of Marius. This is a very disturbing picture of the Roman governing body. But empowering that body to do just that sort of thing by setting a precedent seems to be what Cicero was after. He next says about the Catiline conspiracists:

They are now in your hands who withstood all Rome, with the object of bringing conflagration on the whole city, massacre on all of you, and of receiving Catiline; their letters are in your possession, their seals, their handwriting, and the confession of each individual of them; the Allobroges are tampered with, the slaves are excited, Catiline is sent for; the design is actually begun to be put in execution, that all should be put to death, so that no one should be left even to mourn the name of the republic, and to lament over the downfall of so mighty a dominion.

All these things the witnesses have informed you of; the prisoners have confessed, you by many judgments have already decided; first, because you have thanked me in unprecedented language, and have passed a vote that the conspiracy of abandoned men has been laid open by my virtue and diligence; secondly, because you have compelled Publius Lentulus to abdicate the praetorship; again, because you have voted that he and the others about whom you have decided should be given into custody; and above all because you have decreed a supplication in my name, an honour which has never been paid to any one before acting in a civil capacity; last of all because yesterday you gave most ample rewards to the ambassadors of the Allobroges and to Titus Vulturcius; all which acts are such that they, who have been given into custody by name, without any doubt seem already condemned by you.

Notice how he points out all the things that “you” i.e. the senators, have done. He works this angle throughout the speech. “You rewarded people for information against the conspiracy, so you have acknowledged that it exists. You honored me for my deeds, for protecting you, were you mistaken? “

But I have determined to refer the business to you as a fresh matter, Gentlemen, both as to the fact, what you think of it and as to the punishment, what you vote. I will state what it behoves the consul to state. I have seen for a long time great madness existing in the republic, and new designs being formed, and evil passions being stirred up; but I never thought that so great, so destructive a conspiracy as this was being meditated by citizens. Now to whatever point your minds and opinions incline, you must decide before night. You see how great a crime has been made known to you; if you think that but few are implicated in it you are greatly mistaken; this evil has spread wider than you think; it has spread not only throughout Italy, but it has even crossed the Alps, and creeping stealthily on, it has already occupied many of the provinces; it can by no means be crushed by tolerating it, and by temporising with it; however you determine on chastising it, you must act with promptitude.

Above, in addition to reiterating his cartoonish presentation of the horrific threat, he also sets a time limit “you must decide before night.” The urgency is part of every classic scam: “Act now while supplies last!” He also reminds them of the dreaded Gaulish menace while playing on their desire to not look weak and indecisive.

In the previous three paragraphs of the speech, Cicero sets out his main case which was that the senate must decide and do it quick. Apparently, he wasn’t getting the positive reactions he was expecting because he then took a different direction. He had to destroy Caesar’s solution. He attempts to do this by first assuming that Silanus advocates execution even though he has disavowed this. His reference to “those who have endeavored to destroy all these things” intends the Gracchi brothers and Saturninus whom he claimed had been justly killed for lesser crimes.

I see that as yet there are two opinions. One that of Decius Silanus, who thinks that those who have endeavoured to destroy all these things should be punished with death the other, that of Caius Caesar, who objects to the punishment of death, but adopts the most extreme severity of all other punishment. Each acts in a manner suitable to his own dignity and to the magnitude of the business with the greatest severity. The one thinks that it is not right that those, who have attempted to deprive all or us and the whole Roman people of life, to destroy the empire, to extinguish the name of the Roman people, should enjoy life and the breath of heaven common to us all, for one moment; and he remembers that this sort of punishment has often been employed against worthless citizens in this republic.

First notice his distinction between “all of us” and “the whole Roman people”. Obviously, the “all of us” meant the patrician and equestrian classes. His next remark is bizarre: that death sentences are certainly okay when applied to “worthless citizens.” He seems to be referring to the “rabble” or “the mob” in the terms of many “gentlemen historians” who, holding the same elitist views, consider the working people to be worthless as human beings, only worthy of being worked to death.

His claim that the conspiracy was to “deprive the whole Roman people of life, to destroy the empire, blah blah… is nothing but puerile hyperbole. Even if the Catilinians were conspiring, they were only conspiring to overthrow the wealthy elite. They wanted to rule the empire, not destroy it, or murder everyone.

Now, he goes after Caesar directly, claiming that this solution is unprecedented and impractical:

The other feels that death was not appointed by the immortal gods for the sake of punishment, but that it is either a necessity of nature, or a rest from toils and miseries; therefore wise men have never met it unwillingly, brave men have often encountered it even voluntarily. But imprisonment and that too perpetual, was certainly invented for the extraordinary punishment of nefarious wickedness; therefore he proposes that they should be distributed among the municipal towns. This proposition seems to have in it injustice if you command; it difficulty if you request it.

Out come the cartoon characterizations from his rhetorical bag of tricks in an attempt to make Caesar’s proposal as ridiculous as possible to the minds of the listeners. Keep in mind that Cicero is arguing to execute the prisoners without trial and that Caesar’s suggestion was certainly made with the thought in mind that the truth might be exposed if they were given life long enough to tell it. Cicero is being pretty smart-assical about taking the lives of other human beings:

… He imposes besides a severe punishment on the burgesses of the municipal town if any of the prisoners escape; he surrounds them with the most terrible guard, and with everything worthy of the wickedness of abandoned men. And he proposes to establish a decree that no one shall be able to alleviate the punishment of those whom he is condemning by a vote of either the senate or the people. He takes away even hope, which alone can comfort men in their miseries; besides this, he votes that their goods should be confiscated; he leaves life alone to these infamous men, and if he had taken that away, he would have relieved them by one pang of many tortures of mind and body, and of all the punishment of their crimes. Therefore, that there might be some dread in life to the wicked, men of old have believed that there were some punishments of that sort appointed for the wicked in the shades below; because in truth they perceived that if this were taken away death itself would not be terrible.

Notice that he didn’t challenge the severity of Caesar’s proposal; in fact, he characterized it as much worse than death. He is also diligently polite toward Caesar.

Cicero then, suddenly, has a flash of inspiration! He will use Caesar’s very presence at the meeting as a weapon to attack his argument!

Now, Gentlemen, I see what is my interest; if you follow the opinion of Caius Caesar, (since he has adopted this path in the republic which is accounted the popular one,) perhaps since he is the author and promoter of this opinion, the popular violence will be less to be dreaded by me; if you adopt the other opinion, I know not whether I am not likely to have more trouble; but still let the advantage of the republic outweigh the consideration of my danger.

Cicero points out that, if the senate chooses execution for the prisoners, Caesar’s popularity with the citizens and residents of the city would make it easier for them to persuade the crowd gathered outside of the justice of the decision. Cicero must have been about to burst with glee at his own cleverness in thinking of this. Because, certainly, he had a very large armed guard present because he was very much afraid of the reactions of the people and whether or not Caesar might choose to rile them up or calm them down.

For we have from Caius Caesar, as his own dignity and as the illustrious character of his ancestors demanded, a vote as a hostage of his lasting good-will to the republic; it has been clearly seen how great is the difference between the lenity of demagogues, and a disposition really attached to the interests of the people.

Now he makes an obvious dig at Crassus, who did not attend this meeting.

I see that of those men who wish to be considered attached to the people one man is absent, that they may not seem forsooth to give a vote about the lives of Roman citizens. He only three days ago gave Roman citizens into custody, and decreed me a supplication, and voted most magnificent rewards to the witnesses only yesterday. It is not now doubtful to anyone what he, who voted for the imprisonment of the criminals, congratulation to him who had detected them, and rewards to those who had proved the crime, thinks of the whole matter, and of the cause.

Next, he suggests that if Caesar, by his presence and participation in the debate, acknowledges that it is proper for the senate to pass judgment on the prisoners, then he must also acknowledge the fact that they had lost the rights of citizenship and thus, were no longer protected under the law:

But Caius Caesar considers that the Sempronian law was passed about Roman citizens, but that he who is an enemy of the republic can by no means be a citizen; and moreover that the very proposer of the Sempronian law suffered punishment by the command of the people.

He also denies that Lentulus, a briber and a spendthrift, after he has formed such cruel and bitter plans about the destruction of the Roman people and the ruin of this city, can be called a friend of the people. Therefore this most gentle and merciful man does not hesitate to commit Publius Lentulus to eternal darkness and imprisonment, and establishes a law to all posterity that no one shall be able to boast of alleviating his punishment or hereafter to appear a friend of the people to the destruction of the Roman people. He adds also the confiscation of their goods, so that want also and beggary may be added to all the torments of mind and body.

One can imagine the sarcasm dripping like acid from Cicero’s mouth when he said: “Therefore this most gentle and merciful man does not hesitate to commit Publius Lentulus to eternal darkness and imprisonment…” which he then follows by pointing out that he’s not quibbling over the fact that the prisoners ought to suffer, but he contrasts his “superior mercy”:

…Although, Gentlemen, what cruelty can there be in chastising the enormity of such excessive wickedness? For I decide from my own feeling. For so may I be allowed; to enjoy the republic in safety in your company, as I am not moved to be somewhat vehement in this cause by any severity of disposition, (for who is more merciful than I am?) but rather by a singular humanity and mercifulness.

Cicero asks: “what cruelty can there be in chastising the enormity of such excessive wickedness?” I think that this remark reveals a great deal about Cicero’s inner landscape: it just screams “psychopath.” There is no crime that can justify retaliatory cruelty. Consider:

1: No amount of cruelty can undo what has been done.

2: Cruelty is not an effective deterrent. People still commit the same old crimes, regardless of the punishment.

If cruelty cannot undo what is done, and cannot deter what may be done, then it can serve no purpose but sadism. It is made all the worse if a person believes that 1 or 2 is wrong, then they are a stupid sadist, or at least a willfully ignorant one. If they understand points 1 and 2, then cruelty is a willing choice and I think that we may have found Cicero’s personal motive here: he wanted to personally experience doing something terrible, wicked, forbidden, only he was too much of a coward to do it without a cloak of protection. He was like modern day wealthy perverts who buy kidnapped human beings – adults or children – to participate in, or witness, murder. The prices that what are called “snuff films” fetch tell us that this is a hobby for the rich only. I think that a careful and complete analysis of the life and writings of Cicero by a psychologist or psychiatrist who is expert in psychopathology, will confirm that he was, indeed, a very, very sick individual.

As for his “for who is more merciful than I am?”, I think I’m going to be sick.

Having disposed of Caesar’s arguments, or so he thought, he turns back to his original line of declamation: APOCALYPSE NOW!

For I seem to myself to see this city, the light of the world and the citadel of all nations, falling on a sudden by one conflagration. I see in my mind's eye miserable and unburied heaps of cities in my buried country; the sight of Cethegus and his madness raging amid your slaughter is ever present to my sight.

But when I have set before myself Lentulus reigning, as he himself confesses that he had hoped was his destiny, and this Gabinius arrayed in the purple and Catiline arrived with his army, then I shudder at the lamentation of matrons, and the flight of virgins and of boys and the insults of the vestal virgins; and because these things appear to me exceedingly miserable and pitiable, therefore I show myself severe and rigorous to those who have wished to bring about this state of things.

I ask, forsooth, if any father of a family, supposing his children had been slain by a slave, his wife murdered, his house burnt, were not to inflict on his slaves the severest possible punishment would he appear clement and merciful or most inhuman and cruel? To me he would seem unnatural and hard-hearted who did not soothe his own pain and anguish by the pain and torture of the criminal. And so we, in the case of these men who desired to murder us, and our wives, and our children,-who endeavoured to destroy the houses of every individual among us, and also the republic, the home of all,-who designed to place the nation of the Allobroges on the relics of this city, and on the ashes of the empire destroyed by fire;-if we are very rigorous, we shall be considered merciful; if we choose to be lax, we must endure the character of the greatest cruelty, to the damage of our country and our fellow-citizens. …

But this man …[Lentulus] invited the Gauls to overthrow the foundations of the republic; he stirred up the slaves, he summoned Catiline, he distributed us to Cethegus to be massacred, and the rest of the citizens to Gabinius to be assassinated, the city he allotted to Cassius to burn, and the plundering and devastating of all Italy he assigned to Catiline. You fear, I think, lest in the case of such unheard of and abominable wickedness you should seem to decide anything with too great severity; when we ought much more to fear lest by being remiss in punishing we should appear cruel to our country, rather than appear by the severity of our irritation too rigorous to its most bitter enemies.

I think you get the idea by now. He just repeats himself over and over again. He goes off on his “unification of the patricians and equestrians” thing ad nauseum:

For this is the only cause that has ever been known since the first foundation of the city, in which all men were of one and the same opinion-except those, who, as they saw they must be ruined, preferred to perish in company with all the world rather than by themselves. … Why should I here speak of the Roman knights? who yield to you the supremacy in rank and wisdom, in order to vie with you in love for the republic,-whom this day and this cause now reunite with you in alliance and unanimity with your body reconciled after a disagreement of many years. And if we can preserve for ever in the republic this union now established in my consulship, I pledge myself to you that no civil and domestic calamity can hereafter reach any part of the republic.

And then he says something totally bizarre: that all the crowd gathered outside that he was afraid of a few paragraphs back, and was going to hide from behind Caesar’s toga, now are all gathered together in unity:

The entire multitude of honest men, even the poorest is present; for who is there to whom these temples, the sight of the city, the possession of liberty,-in short; this light and this soil of his, common to us all, is not both dear and pleasant and delightful? … And, as this is the case, Gentlemen, the protection of the Roman people is not wanting to you; do you take care that you do not seem to be wanting to the Roman people.

All the men of property, the shopkeepers and artisans; all the people who had been agitating for full citizenship and had suffered the dissolution of their collegia to prevent them from making any progress, were all rallying behind Cicero the Great! And even though there had been three slave rebellions, and the crushing of Spartacus and his legions was a recent event, Cicero even has the gall to claim that the slaves are all behind him (“provided his condition of slavery is tolerable”). In short, with the union that he, and he alone, had forged (with this fake terror conspiracy), “hereafter no civil and domestic strife will come to any part of the state.” Yeah, right.

He then returns to the “Hurry while supplies last!” routine interwoven with still more self-glorification:

You have a consul preserved out of many dangers and plots, and from death itself not for his own life, but for your safety. All ranks agree for the preservation of the republic with heart and will, with zeal, with virtue, with their voice. Your common country, besieged by the hands and weapons of an impious conspiracy, stretches forth her hands to you as a suppliant; to you she recommends herself to you she recommends the lives of all the citizens, and the citadel, and the Capitol, and the altars of the household gods, and the eternal inextinguishable fire of Vesta, and all the temples of all the gods, and the altars and the walls and the houses of the city. Moreover, your own lives, those of your wives and children, the fortunes of all men, your homes, your hearth; are this day interested in your decision. …

You have a leader mindful of you, forgetful of himself-an opportunity which is not always given to men; you have all ranks, all individuals, the whole Roman people, (a thing which in civil transactions we see this day for the first time,) full of one and the same feeling. Think with what great labour this our dominion was founded, by what virtue this our liberty was established, by what kind favour of the gods our fortunes were aggrandized and ennobled, and how nearly one night destroyed them all. That this may never hereafter be able not only to be done, but not even to be thought of you must this day take care. And I have spoken thus, not in order to stir you up who almost outrun me myself but that my voice, which ought to be the chief voice in the republic, may appear to have fulfilled the duty which belongs to me as consul.

Ooops! That wasn’t enough self-glorification. There is more!

Now, before I return to the decision, I will say a few words concerning myself. As numerous as is the band of conspirators-and you see that it is very great,-so numerous a multitude of enemies do I see that I have brought upon myself. But I consider them base and powerless and despicable and abject. But if at any time that band shall be excited by the wickedness and madness of any one, and shall show itself more powerful than your dignity and that of the republic, yet. Gentlemen, I shall never repent of my actions and of my advice. Death, indeed, which they perhaps threaten me with, is prepared for all men; such glory during life as you have honoured me with by your decrees no one has ever attained to. For you have passed votes of congratulation to others for having governed the republic successfully, but to me alone for having saved it.

Now he ranks himself with all the heroes of Rome:

Let Scipio be thought illustrious, he by whose wisdom and valour Hannibal was compelled to return into Africa, and to depart from Italy. Let the second Africanus be extolled with conspicuous praise, who destroyed two cities most hostile to this empire, Carthage and Numantia. Let Lucius Paullus be thought a great man, he whose triumphal car was graced by Perses, previously a most powerful and noble monarch. Let Marius be held in eternal honour, who twice delivered Italy from siege, and from the fear of slavery. Let Pompey be preferred to them all-Pompey, whose exploits and whose virtues are bounded by the same districts and limits as the course of the sun. There will be, forsooth, among the praises of these men, some room for my glory, unless haply it be a greater deed to open to us provinces whither we may fly, than to take care that those who are at a distance may, when conquerors; have a home to return to.

This last claim was going to come back to bite him big-time in a few years. The very fact that he had to work so hard to make a case for a vast, empire destroying terrorist conspiracy, and then – knowing that it was mostly trumped up – actually went off on this truly fantastical delusion of his own grandeur is, in my opinion, clear evidence of Cicero’s unbalanced mind. Throughout his speech that we have been examining, and even throughout his life, this tendency to see himself in some kind of supernatural, religiously underwritten, omnipotent role, alternating with persecutory delusions suggests several mental illnesses. Statistics tell us that about 60% of people with bipolar disorder have such delusions and 50% of schizophrenics have them. We’ll come back to more evidence of Cicero’s mental illness in final chapter.

For the moment, just hang on, there’s a bit more. We are getting to the end, but you really have to see this to believe that anybody like this ever rose to such a position of power (which says a lot about ancient Rome) much less that he was taken as a model of great rhetoric, philosophy, advocate of freedom and constitutional rights and all that (which says a lot about our modern civilization and political systems):

Although in one point the circumstances of foreign triumph are better than those of domestic victory; because foreign enemies, either if they be crushed become one's servants, or if they be received into the state, think themselves bound to us by obligations; but those of the number of citizens who become depraved by madness and once begin to be enemies to their country,-those men, when you have defeated their attempts to injure the republic, you can neither restrain by force nor conciliate by kindness. So that I see that an eternal war with all wicked citizens has been undertaken by me; which, however, I am confident can easily be driven back from me and mine by your aid, and by that of all good men, and by the memory of such great dangers, which will remain, not only among this people which has been saved, but in the discourse and minds of all nations forever. Nor, in truth, can any power be found which will be able to undermine and destroy your union with the Roman knights, and such unanimity as exists among all good men….

Gentlemen, instead of my military command-instead of the army … and the other badges of honour which have been rejected by me for the sake of protecting the city and your safety … in place of all these things, and in reward for my singular zeal in your behalf, and for this diligence in saving the republic which you behold, I ask nothing of you but the recollection of this time and of my whole consulship. And as long as that is fixed in your minds, I still think I am fenced round by the strongest wall. But if the violence of wicked men shall deceive and overpower my expectations, I recommend to you my little son, to whom, in truth, it will be protection enough, not only for his safety, but even for his dignity if you recollect that he is the son of him who has saved all these things at his own single risk.

What is that?! A bird? A god? No! It’s Super-Cicero to the rescue!

Wherefore, Gentlemen, determine with care, as you have begun, and boldly, concerning your own safety, and that of the Roman people, and concerning your wives and children; concerning your altars and your hearths your shrines and temples; concerning the houses and homes of the whole city; concerning your dominion, your liberty and the safety of Italy and the whole republic. For you have a consul who will not hesitate to obey your decrees, and who will be able as long as he lives, to defend what you decide on and of his own power to execute it.

I am so glad that is over. I’m also glad that I wasn’t in the audience when that nonsense was delivered and I can imagine how trying it was for Caesar. I think it would be an interesting example to be dramatized by a good actor as a case study of mind-manipulation and propaganda. Oh, wait, we have that sort of thing now on the evening news and in the modern-day citadels of power!

This particular oration has been read and studied for over seven hundred years and the consensus has always been that Catilinian conspirators were executed by Cicero by the authority of the senatus consultum ultimum – the declaration of martial law – investing him with extraordinary powers. Thus, Cicero’s speech has been interpreted as a defense of the propriety and constitutionality of this act. But the fact is, as you will see, Cicero makes no defense whatsoever of the SCU – he never refers to it at all in this oration and it appears that the omission is intentional. There have been two proposals (that I know of) to explain this studied avoidance of the claim: 1) either the SCU did not confer authority on the magistrate to take extra-constitutional action in specific cases or, 2) Cicero deliberately intended to put his actions of extra-judicial murder on some other basis than the power of the SCU.

In point of fact, the SCU was a form of decree that introduced a sort of modified martial law that presupposed the need for fast, secret, action taken to disarm an immediate threat. To have a meeting of magistrates where the plans of the SCU were discussed would have deprived it of any effectiveness. In his first oration, Cicero does tell us that the passage of the SCU itself was an authorization to carry out executions. But for some reason, in this oration, he has backed off significantly from that position. (Possibly because of the points Caesar made.) What seems to be so is that Cicero was viewing the senate itself as a court with him as president. The court has heard the testimony, the confessions, reviewed the evidence and thus, according to Cicero, it may then properly impose sentence without possibility of appeal due to the fact that the accused have forfeited their rights as citizens.

Cicero avoids entirely the fact that, under the interpretation of the constitution that he and his clique accept, he can, indeed, inflict the death penalty by virtue of the SCU which has already been passed and the only reason there can be is because for so extreme an act, he wishes to have the specific approval and legal backing of the senate.

But we notice that he opens with the declaration that he, and he alone, will take all responsibility. What he has slipped in there is the fact that he will only do what the senate votes for him to do. That is, he is not being honest and making a straightforward argument for the judicial competence of the senate. Rather, he assumed in his speech that this was the case, that the senate could sit as a criminal court against which there was no appeal.

Many of his listeners would think that they were acting lawfully because, of course, there were many cases of conspiracies and murders where the senate had appointed commissions of inquiry or had brought extraordinary cases to the judgment of the people or special courts. This would tend to make his audience think that the senate could, indeed, adjudicate criminal cases.

An examination of the facts, however, shows otherwise. Up to that moment in time, there was no case on record in which the senate actually exercised judicial powers; it did not have that right. It did not even have the right to delegate judicial competence in criminal cases. The commissions appointed by it did hear cases and appoint penalties, but this was always done by the recognized right of a duly authorized magistrate who presided over the court, not through the delegation of judicial power to the commission by the senate.

Therefore, Cicero’s argument does not bear examination from a constitutional point of view and he intentionally obscured the issue so that the senate could act as a supreme court with him as the authorized executioner.

Which brings us to the question: why did Cicero so desperately want to execute the prisoners? The obvious answer is because the entire terrorist situation was a complete fabrication and would not stand the scrutiny of a real, duly authorized, judicially competent, court and he needed to get rid of inconvenient witnesses.

Was his creation of a terrorist attack simply because he wanted to be glorified as the savior of Rome, a sort of ancient George W. Bush landing on an aircraft carrier proclaiming “Mission Accomplished”? We hardly think that Dubya instigated the 9-11 attacks on his own for the purpose of launching a war so he could prance around wearing a flight suit and a codpiece.

Was Cicero acting on behalf of his “handlers”, the seven core members of the optimate clique? Did his speech reflect what they actually wanted: the power to decide life and death without the interference of judges or juries? Such power put into the hands of the oligarchy alone is rather like the authority of the US president today who can declare an individual an enemy combatant and send a drone to murder them and their entire neighborhood.

Was he also rubbing his hands in sadistic glee at the thought of actually committing cold-blooded murder that he knew was illegal, but with a cloak of protection (he thought), just to get his jollies?

Even if this last suggestion is a bit over-the-top as a possible solution, the evidence of his mental illness is so clear that I’m going to leave it as one of the possibilities. I think it is a combination of all of the above. Like I said, Cicero was a very, very sick individual.

Catulus jumped up and began to sputter in his indignation at those who were acknowledging the justice and rightness of Caesar’s argument. Catulus was one of the leading “optimates”. But it was the thirty-two year old Cato who came to the rescue of the optimate cause.