Roman Civilization

CMS 206 /History 206

In this year, Julius Caesar initiated the practice of prosecuting Sullan bounty hunters in the quaestio de sicariis, either as iudex or accusator. [iudex: Broughton, v. 2, p. 162; Gruen, suggests that Caesar simply acted as a prosecutor, p. 76, 277; cf. Seager, p. 347, n. 43]. Catiline was prosecuted in the quaestio de sicariis after the election but not convicted. (Ad Att. 1.16). The new tribunes entered office in December 63.

Cicero and Antonius entered their consulship on January 1, 63 B.C.E. Cicero immediately began an assault on the tribunes' reform bill, which called for a widespread land-settlement throughout Italy, administered by a board of ten commissioners and funded by revenue from Pompey's settlement's in Asia Minor and the state's claim of war booty heretofore the property of victorious generals. Pompey was exempted from this requirement. Cicero gave three speeches against the bill, one to the Senate and two to the people, considered by scholars to be "masterpieces of misrepresentation." Cicero's speech to the Senate deployed his rhetoric of unnamed powers sinisterly controlling Rullus for their private ends. Despite the strong front the tribunes had offered, L. Caecilius Rufus announced he would veto the bill after Cicero's speech. Cicero's speeches to the people characterized Rullus' bill as anti-Pompeian, but it is not at clear that Pompey understood it to be so, or even that he did not support (or would not have supported) the bill. At the very least, he was displeased that Cicero used his name, and his popular support to defeat the bill. Whether Caesar and Crassus were the forces behind the bill that Cicero alluded to is a matter of scholarly debate [Stockton, p. 90: "It is safe to assume that Crassus and Caesar were behind Rullus;" Gruen, p. 81, n. 149: "But no ancient evidence specifies the names of either man in this connection and the matter does not warrant further speculation...;" Syme, p. 98-99, suspects Caesar's legal acumen behind some of the drafting, and suggests, too cynically according to Gruen, that the proponents of the bill never expected it to be passed, offering it only to harry the optimates].

The next political spectacle of 63 was the prosecution of Rabirius for the murder of Saturninus, 37 years before, using the archaic procedure of perduellio. The factual matter at issue was whether Rabirius had killed Saturninus after he had surrendered to Marius. The substantive matter at issue was the scope and authority of the Senate's senatusconsultum ultimum, issued to Marius, then counsel, to suppress Saturninus' rebellion. The tribune T. Labienus proposed and passed the bill establishing the inquiry into Saturninus' death. Caesar's influence, nevertheless, is suspected by modern scholars [Syme sees Caesar's touch in the choice of the perduellio procedure, 98. Stockton assumes Caesar designed the trial. p. 92. So does Gruen, p. 78. Caesar and his uncle L. Caesar, who had been consul in 64 were appointed by the praetor to administer the proceedings. Gruen believes this was deliberate, p. 278. Stockton argues that they were selected by lot. p. 92]. Cicero intervened, having the Senate quash the proceedings on the grounds that the penalty they involved (scourging and crucifixion) had been overridden by later capital procedures offering more humane versions of the death penalty. Labienus then brought Rabirius up on charges before the People, the first such trial since Sullan times. Hortensius and Cicero spoke for Rabirius. The proceedings terminated, before judgment, however, when Q. Metellus Celer, then praetor and a staunch Pompeian, invoking another arcane procedure, ran up the red flag on the Janiculum.

Cicero's language in the pro Rabirio (13-14), claiming that he, not Labienus, was the true friend of the people, and the flamboyant procedural touches of the prosecutors and Celer, demonstrate that the proceedings were a show trial by the populares, defending the people's rights against the arbitrary suspension of civil liberties a senatusconsultum ultimum entailed. Stockton believes that the timing of the trial was deliberate. The populares, fearing the growing strength of the optimates, and mindful of purges of the populares under the authority of the senatusconsultum ultimum, on previous occasions when popular authority threatened senatorial privilege, anticipated an immanent civil conflict with the optimates and sought to forestall their recourse to the senatusconsultum ultimum [Stockton, p. 92-97; cf. Gruen, p. 278: "The purpose, it seems, was not to question the legitimacy of the s.c.u. as such, but rather to set firm limits to it."]. If Stockton is right, then the populares ' anticipation of the Catilinarian crisis and the summary executions of some of the conspirators by Cicero under the authority of a senatusconsultum ultimum, suggests that political tensions had reached an almost intolerable pitch at an early date in Cicero's consulship.

Tension on the populares vs. optimates axis of Roman politics, nevertheless continued to grow. Labienus secured passage of a bill returning elections of the members of the college of pontiffs to the people (Dio 37.37). Caesar, on the coincidental death of the current pontifex maximus, Q. Caecilius Metellus Pius, announced his candidacy, and shortly after the election of magistrates for 62, in which he won the office of praetor, won the election for pontifex maximus, defeating the optimate, L. Catulus [Broughton, v.2, p. 171; Syme, p. 99; Stockton, p. 97-98; Gruen, p. 80-81. Gruen maps Caesar's victory on the pro- vs. anti-Pompeian axis of Roman politics, attributing the victory to the desire of Pompeians to defeat Pompey's enemy Catulus].

Caesar also prosecuted Cn. Piso, the consul who had battled with Cornelius over the electoral reform legislation of 67 this year, on a de reputundis charge relating to his pro-consular govenorship. Cicero defended Piso and won (pro Flacco 98). Stockton characterizes Cicero's defense as the payment of a political debt to the optimates, but the spirit of the prosecution as pro-Pompeian.

Q. Caecilius Rufus, the tribune who threatened to veto Rullus' reform bill, then proposed a bill which would have restored the civil rights of Autronius and P. Sulla, whose loss of the de ambitu trial in 66 cost them not merely the consulships but all civil rights at Rome. Optimate opposition was strong enough to prompt the Pompeians to withdraw the bill. Caesar urged one of the tribunes to propose a bill restoring the civil rights of those proscribed by Sulla. Cicero led the successful opposition to the bill, arguing that the resentment of those proscribed over their admittedly unjust treatment would result in political chaos if they were allowed to hold office (In Piso 4).

Electoral reform became a political issue again in 63 when Servius Sulpicius Rufus, a candidate for consul backed by Cicero, and M. Cato, candidate for tribune, proposed even more stringent penalties. Cicero reluctantly sponsored the bill, which probably would not have found favor with Pompey, when faced with strong optimate pressure closer to home. The optimate candidates who forced the bill, ran campaigns, according to Cicero, that consisted largely of threatening other candidates with prosecution under the new lex Tullia de ambitu, Sulpicius threatening Murena, and Cato threatening Catiline (pro Murena 43-51).

Shortly before the elections of 63, Caesar also repaid his debt to the Luculli, helping L. Lucullus finally obtain the triumph he had sought since his return from the Mithridatic wars. (Cicero, Lucullus 3). Lucullus' return had been engineered in no small part by Cornelius, Gabinius and his brother-in-law, Clodius in order to clear the field for Pompey. C. Memmius, Pompey's relation, supporter and tribune of 66 had blocked the triumph. The celebration meant that Lucullus' veterans were be present in Rome, to help celebrate the triumph, at the time of the elections. It happened that one of the candidates in 63, L. Murena was a protÚgÚ of Lucullus, who had served with him in Asia. Lucullus, a bitter anti-Pompeian, backed Murena with money and the votes of his veterans (pro Murena 37-38).

Catiline's campaigned again for the consulship in 63 after escaping conviction in the quaestio de sicariis. He remained a strong candidate. Stockton argues that he retained the support of the leading populares almost till the elections. He also counted on the support of Antonius (pro Murena 49) who had supported the tribunes' reform bill. In 63, Catiline campaigned openly on the slogan of debt reform (tabulae novae). The slogan was not a specific proposal but a political phrase, like Al Smith's "a chicken in every pot," meant to appeal to the widest range of Roman voters facing financial difficulty. There were a very large number of Roman voters facing financial difficulties. Cicero had done nothing to help them, and everything to block the social and economic reforms proposed by the populares. He had done so using Pompey's name, and thereby eroding some of Pompey's support among the people.

Cicero attempted to delay the elections of 63, asking for a Senatorial inquiry into some fiery language Catiline had used in a private speech to his supporters [He may also have been prompted by a rumor that Catiline planned to murder him, and may have offered that rumor to the Senate as a reason for delay]. Catiline did not retreat from his language and the Senate was not disposed to delay elections (pro Murena 51). Appearing in the Campus Martius in a breastplate, surrounded by bodyguards, Cicero watched Catiline lose again (id. at 51-52).D. Iunius Silanus and L. Licinius Murena were elected. Sulpicius and Cato promptly indicted Murena under the terms of the new election law. Murena assembled a dream team of defense lawyers: Cicero, Hortensius and Crassus (pro Murena 10). Lucullus would appear in his support as well.

Manlius, usually described as Catiline's agent or campaign manager, left for Etruria, perhaps accompanying home the disappointed Sullan colonists who had come to Rome to vote for Catiline. Sallust reports that agents of Catiline were also sent to other areas of Italy (BC 27-28) [Waters, p. 201, suggests that at this date, the affairs of Manlius in Etruria were unconnected to Catiline, and the eventual collaboration of the two was in the nature of a shot gun wedding forced by Cicero. Cicero explicitly mocked such a view, In Cat. II.14]. Then, according to Dio (37.31), Crassus and other optimates received anonymous letters.

According to Plutarch (Cic. 15), the letters contained warnings that Catiline planned a slaughter of the optimates at the upcoming Sullan Victory Games. Whatever his prior relationship to Catiline, Crassus was at this point prepared to side with Cicero, and delivered the letters to him. Cicero summoned the Senate and was encouraged to raise levies and conduct inquiries [Stockton, p. 114. In his life of Crassus, Plutarch (13), suggests that Cicero was behind the letters, testing or entrapping Crassus]. It might seem like a mild response, but in the Senate's defense it should be noted that the evidence, anonymous letters, was flimsy, and the charge was much like ones Cicero had made against Catiline before [I.e., The July 64 charge that Catiline and Piso had planned a slaughter of the optimates and the July 63 charge (if it was made), that Catiline planned the murder of Cicero].

Crassus' protÚgÚ, Q. Arrius, praetor of 64 then arrived in Rome to report that Manlius was gathering troops in Etruria and hanging about the towns there, waiting for a signal from Rome. It was at this point, Hardy believes, that Cicero made the acquaintance of Curius, a Catilinarian about to turn double agent, and Fulvia, his mistress. The introduction was made, Hardy speculates, by Caesar, who at this point would want to be on record, like Crassus, as having dropped Catiline. It was Fulvia's information, not hindsight, that permitted Cicero the accuracy of his predictions to the Senate. [Hardy, p. 56. Hardy is rather fervent in his discovery of Crassus and Caesar behind every event in the Catilinarian affair. Sallust, moreover, characterizes Fulvia as keeping company with the optimates (BC 23)]. At a meeting of the Senate on October 21, Cicero addressed the Senate, reported Arrius' news, and predicted that Manlius would take the field on the 27th of the month, and that a massacre was planned at Rome for the 28th. The Senate voted a senatusconsultum ultimum (In Cat. I.7; Dio 37.31) [Plutarch (Cic. 15 and Crassus 13) and Sallust (BC 29.2) recount only one Senate meeting. Dio suggests two in quick succession. Stockton, p. 115, n. 12 (two meetings); Rawson, p. 73 (one meeting, or maybe two)].

Arrius' information moved the Senate for two reasons. First, it was specific, whereas Cicero's previous invocations of a caedem optimium (slaughter of the optimates) was vague and general. Second, Arrius was Crassus' man. If the Senate had believed Crassus to be the sinister force in Roman politics that Cicero was forever hinting about, the fact that Crassus' candidate was revealing the information about armed forces in Etruria would have been quite alarming. Even if no one accepted Cicero's characterization of Crassus, moreover, his very distance from Cicero (and Catiline) would tend to authenticate the information reported.

In response to the senatusconsultum ultimum, Cicero broke up the gladiator schools and distributed the inhabitants to Capua and other towns (Sallust, BC 30); organized a militia under the supervision of minor magistrates and strengthened Praeneste (where Manlius was expected to start his campaign) with specially levied troops (In Cat. I.8). Manlius began the uprising in Etruria on October 27. Word did not reach Rome until about the first of November when Lucius Saenius, an otherwise unknown senator, read a letter to the Senate reporting the news (BC 30). At that meeting, vaguer news of other movements in Italy and slave uprisings at Capua and Apulia were discussed.

Meanwhile back in Praeneste, Manlius' effort to seize the town had failed because of Cicero's preparations (In Cat. 1.7). At about the same time in Rome, Q. Marcius Rex and Q. Metellus Creticus, former consuls waiting or at least hoping to celebrate triumphs, were dispatched to Faesulae and Apulia. Q. Rufus and Q. Metellus Celer, praetors, were dispatched to Capua and Picenum with the power to levy soldiers (BC 30). At this point, Sallust reports (BC 30), Rome fell into a panic.

In the same few days after the reading of Saenius' letter, L. Aemilius Paulus indicted Catiline de vi. Catiline calmly offered to confine himself to the custody of a number of the leading senators, including Cicero (BC 31; In Cat. I. 19). All but his friend Marcus Metellus declined the offer. The prosecution failed for want of hard evidence. Catiline remained free and continued to attend the Senate.

On November 6, Catiline gathered with his supports at the house of the senator, M. Porcius Laeca. Plans were made; strategies finalized; the murder of Cicero the next morning by Vargunteius and Cornelius decided. Curius, the double agent told his mistress Fulvia, who told Cicero about the murder. The would-be assassins found the counsel's doors locked and guarded the next morning (BC 17, 27; In Cat., I.8-9; pro Sulla 6, 18, 52).

On November 8, Cicero called a meeting of the Senate in the temple of Jupiter Stator. The place was ringed with guards. Cicero perhaps believed that Catiline had planned to leave Rome before the meeting, but found his opponent there, isolated, but confident and unrepentant. The consul delivered the first Catilinarian. Catiline answered, defended his dignitas, and reminded his audience that Cicero, at least with respect to his birth, was not much more than a migrant worker in Rome (inquilinus civis) (BC 31). Catiline left and the Senate, having been offered merely a brilliant rehash of the slaughter of the optimates (In Cat. I.15), but no new evidence, took no action.

That night, however, Catiline left Rome. He left letters for leading senators proclaiming his innocence and claiming that he was going into exile at Marseilles (Sallust, BC 34). He also left a letter for Catulus, claiming that he had been robbed of office by lesser men, that his campaign for the dispossessed reflected his personal nature, not his debts, and announcing that he would follow the course necessary to preserve what was left of his dignitas (Sallust, BC 35). Catiline's letter was that of a man who felt himself persecuted and betrayed - admittedly a frequent profile for revolutionaries - at least as much as a defiant, if veiled threat [Syme's analysis of the letter's style, especially when compared to Cicero and Sallust's leads him to conclude that Sallust is quoting the original. p. 71-72. Waters argues that it was only at this point, Catiline that Catiline contemplated taking up arms against Rome, and only then in response to Cicero's growing potentia, p. 201; 213]. The letters became public knowledge almost immediately. The next day, November 9th, Cicero delivered his second Catilinarian address to the people. He was triumphant, chastising the Romans who had not or would not believe him, castigating the Catilinarians as the dregs, outcasts and deviants.

Within the next two weeks, news reached Rome that Catiline had joined Manlius in Etruria and was sporting Marian imperatorial insignia. The Senate declared Catiline and Manlius public enemies, offered rewards to informants and pardons to the Catilinarians who put down arms. No one ever collected on these offers. The Senate also empowered the consuls to levy troops and Antonius was dispatched to Etruria to lead an army against Catiline (Sallust, BC 36) [Waters notes that Sallust's description here of the loyalty of the Catilinarians contradicts his statement that many in his army deserted (56)].

Things had calmed down enough in Rome, however, for Murena's trial to take place. Murena was acquitted. Cicero's defense was three pronged. First, he provided devastatingly humorous caricatures of the prosecutors Sulpicius and Cato - it is hard to vote for a man you have laughed at. It may have been good just to laugh after the tension of the last weeks. In such circumstances it is hard to deny the man who made you laugh your vote. Second, he pled national security. Catiline was still on the loose. The state needed a strong military consul. Finally, he deployed his rhetoric of unknown, sinister forces at work. Secret Catilinarians remained at Rome. There was a Trojan Horse within the city. They planned to destroy the city (pro Murena 78-80).

The Catilinarians Cicero described were plotting a coup d'Útat, even as Cicero spoke. L. Calpurnius Bestia, who would enter office as tribune on December 10 was to convene a public meeting on December 16 in which he would attack Cicero. The next day, during the Saturnalia celebrations, the conspirators would fire the city in twelve designated places, ambush and kill Cicero, kill leading citizens (sons were assigned the job of killing their fathers) and then in the confusion leave Rome to join Catiline who would have brought his army to within striking distance of the city (Sallust, BC 39, 43). Cicero's account in the third Catilinarian differs in some important respects. He did not refer to Bestia's role or the plan to murder him, and described the planned fires as a general conflagration (In Cat. 3.10).

[The problem with this account is Sallust's designation of Bestia as the point man. An L. Calpurnius Bestia was prosecuted in 56 by Caelius for electioneering in an election for the praetorship which he had lost. Broughton, v.2, p. 201. Cicero represented him at trial, recalled Bestia's loyalty during Cicero's exile and won the first trial. Eventually, however, Bestia was convicted. Gruen, p. 301. How could this be the same Bestia? Could there have been two L. Calpurnius Bestias, roughly contemporaneous and active in Roman politics at the same time? As it happens, Metellus Nepos, a tribune of the plebs and Pompeian who had entered office on December 10, objected strongly to Cicero's execution of the urban conspirators, and in fact prevented Cicero from making the customary speech to the people at the close of his consulship on those grounds (Ad Fam. V.2). Gruen believes firmly there were two Bestias; Syme as strongly that there was only one. Gruen, p. 300. Syme, p. 131-133, noting Broughton's concession of the identity of the Bestia of 62 with the Bestia of 56 (Broughton, Supp.), believes that Sallust inserted Bestia into the story for somewhat malicious purposes.]

Sallust records pro-Catilinarian risings in various rural parts of Italy at this time which the magistrates had dispatched easily suppressed. In fact the only commander in the field who appeared to be having problems was the consul Antonius, in Etruria, whom Catiline managed to elude (BC 42; cf. pro Sestio 9-11).

It was at this point that whatever luck the Catilinarians in Rome had possessed failed completely. Sallust (BC 40-41) records that envoys from the Gallic tribe of the Allobroges had arrived in Rome were approached by Publius Umbrenus, a freedman with business interests in Gaul (BC 40). Umbrenus was fulfilling Catiline's directive, according to Sallust, to seek supporters for the revolution (BC 39). The Allobroges, who were in Rome to complain about the crushing burden of their debts and taxes (BC 40), seemed good candidates, and expressed interest in Umbrenus' revolutionary talk. He introduced them to P. Gabinius Capito, an equite, who was one of the leaders of the Catilinarians (but no relation to the tribune of 67). Apparently as a gesture of good faith, the Catilinarians revealed a good part of their intentions to the Allobroges (BC 41). The Gauls were to provide cavalry in exchange for debt relief (id; In Cat. 3.9).

The Allobroges at this point decided to consult with Q. Fabius Sanga, a senator whose family served as their patrons (Sallust, BC 41). Sanga immediately brought the story and the Gauls to Cicero. For Cicero it was an opportunity to acquire some names and hard evidence to back up his Trojan Horse rhetoric. The Allobroges were told to entrap as many Catilinarians as possible. The conspirators provided the Allobroges with sealed letters affirming the debt for cavalry offer (BC 44). The Gauls then left Rome, accompanied by Titus Volturcius who would introduce them to Catiline on the way. Lentulus, one of the leading conspirators in Rome also gave Volturcius an oral and written message to Catiline, which, inter alia, urged Catiline to accept slaves into his army (id.).

On December 2, at the Mulvian bridge, the Allobroges and Volturcius were waylaid by praetors charged by Cicero with the task of arresting the party as it left Rome (BC 45). Cicero then ordered the arrest of the leading conspirators and had them held under guard, first at his home, and then at the Temple of Concord, demonstrably careful throughout to preserve the evidence under seal. Then he summoned the Senate (BC 46). Volturcius was called. He fabricated a story until he was granted immunity. He told all he knew, which was not much, since he was quite a recent conspirator (perhaps a plant by Cicero? [Hardy, p.77, says not at all. Waters, p. 214 says, "he appears also to have been one of Cicero's men."]), but enough. The Allobroges were called. The letters were produced. Each Catilinarian was called and made to acknowledge his seal, after which the letter was read and he confessed (BC 47, In Cat. 3.8-13). The Senate authorized the arrest of the Catilinarians and voted a supplicatio for Cicero, the first ever voted to honor a civilian magistrate. Cicero immediately left the Senate and delivered the third Catilinarian to the people (In Cat. 3.14). Cicero had the material he needed to detach the urban plebs from Catiline: the threat of fire, slave rebellion, and Gauls. Sallust records that to this point they were sympathetic to the Catilinarians, BC 39, 47. Cicero was wildly successful (BC 48).

The next day, December 4th, Roman politicians tried to capitalize on the rout of the Catilinarians, and were recognized by their contemporaries to be doing so. First, L. Tarquinius appeared before the Senate to offer testimony that he had been dispatched to Catiline to inform him of the arrests and encourage him (Sallust, BC 48). In all other respects his testimony corroborated that of Volturcius. The Senate professed outrage. Cicero moved that the evidence be struck. According to Sallust the talk was that either Autronius was behind Tarquinius, hoping that Crassus would have to use his considerable influence to protect the Catilinarians if he himself were publicly implicated, or that Cicero was behind Tarquinius, hoping to embarrass Crassus. Crassus in later years believed the latter version (id.). Sallust also reports that Catulus and Piso, who had very recent clashes with Caesar, tried to persuade Cicero to implicate Caesar, but that Cicero refused to do so. Nonplused, they spread the rumor anyway and excited a demonstration of the equites who were standing guard at the Temple of Concord against Caesar as he left the Senate meeting (BC 49).

Cicero, prompted by the efforts to free the arrested conspirators (BC 50; In Cat. 4. 17) convened the Senate on December 5th to decide the fate of the conspirators arrested two days before. Crassus' presence at the meeting is not recorded. Caesar, however, was present. He argued strenuously against summary execution on constitutional grounds, and came close to carrying the Senate. Cato, however, persuaded them back to execution. Immediately after the vote, Cicero and the praetors supervised the executions [See Stockton, p. 135-137 for how unusual and unexpected the decision to execute prisoners of this rank was]. (BC 50-55). Cicero then delivered the fourth Catilinarian. In the following days, Catulus (In Pisonem 3, 6) and Cato (Plutarch, Cic. 23) called for Cicero to titled a father of the country. L. Gellius called for Cicero to be given the civic crown (In Pisonem 6).

Five days after the execution of the Catilinarians, the new tribunes took office. They included Q. Caecilius Metellus Nepos, who was Pompey's legate and the half brother of Pompey's wife. He immediately began a pointed campaign against Cicero, complaining that Cicero had executed the urban conspirators without a trial. When Cicero laid down his office at the end of the year, he vetoed the consul's customary address, permitting Cicero only to swear his oath (ad Fam. 5.2; in Pisonem 6-7; Plut. Cic. 23; Dio 38). Cicero outfoxed Nepos on this occasion by reformulating the oath to affirm that he had saved the state, and in his accounts, was warmly applauded by the people (id.).