Selfish History

Letters In The Night

In October of 63 BC, Marcus Tullius Cicero came into possession of a handful of letters which concerned him deeply. Cicero, recently elected consul of the Roman Republic and serving, therefore, as a joint head of state, was of course used to frequent visits from senators. But few guests brought portents as potent as these to the scholar and lawyer’s door. Delivered to him by the wealthy statesman (of First Triumvirate fame) Marcus Licinius Crassus, accompanied by other senators, the unsigned papers concerned a plot. And with their unexpected arrival in the dead of night, the insidious conspiracy that Cicero had erstwhile suspected was confirmed – laid before him in naked words. 

To Cicero, then, the letters were more than portentous – they represented concrete evidence of an impending attempt to overthrow the Roman Republic, achieved through the butchering of prominent figures at the top of society. The question of if the Senate, the governing body consisting of hundreds of life-members, each elected to the position by a consul, would agree was to be answered soon. And when every senator was duly convened in the Curia (the definitive meeting place), the intended recipients of the letters also read of the plan to overthrow the consular election, and of the grim warning: leave Rome before the impending massacre of the existing leadership.

These events occurred in conjunction with a gathering of arms in Etruria to the north. To senators unconvinced by the anonymous letters Cicero had conjured from the night, whisperings regarding the growing militia signalled them to evidence altogether sharper in nature. Detailed in the coming weeks to Cicero, by a group of Gauls (the Allobroges) who were made privy to events in Etruria by conspirators attempting to recruit them, the makeup of the Etrurian forces spoke to the reasoning for the brewing conflict.

Ex soldiers who fought for Sulla in the civil wars, now in heavy debt due to lack of financial and political support; struggling farmers, suffering from poor harvest and impoverishment; political outcasts, looking to regain their former status. All had debt in common. All were promised a complete financial reset by their leader, should they be successful.

The Roman elite, these marginalised groups had decided, would pay their long overdue arrears in blood. And so a thick nimbus of disaffection loomed over Etruria, soon to release its violent heart upon the capital – upon Cicero: the breathing (for now) symbol of the combined forces’ fury.

The endangered senators, reading the letters soon after Cicero’s reception of them, could see the murmurings from Etruria take believable shape from between the lines. Many promptly reflected Cicero’s concern back to him, some, though, shared the view he was fostering a feeling of fear for personal gain. Cicero at least found a modicum of comfort, and confidence, in being almost certain as to the identity of the snake’s head. 

While named in the letters, Lucius Sergius Catilina (referred to in the English Catiline henceforth) remained in Rome despite Cicero’s public disdain and his best efforts to expel the lead conspirator. He knew that senators were conservative and slow to act by nature. With some members perhaps even sympathetic to the rebel cause, the senate would not rush to execute Catiline on thin evidence, especially given Cicero had motive to see his downfall.

Catiline, an erstwhile professional and political rival of Cicero, had now become the consul’s arch enemy. Revealing him and pitting the populace against his cause was Cicero’s paramount aim. But not yet was Cateline fully unmasked. Cicero would need to rally the city under his flag to do so. By the end of the Senate meeting on 21 October, as the letters burned holes in the minds of senators and news from Etruria became undeniable, the two consuls – Cicero and Gaius Antonius Hybrida – were granted special powers to safeguard the Republic from the inbound coup d’état. A state of emergency had been called. 

Catiline, in response to this escalation, did not hide himself in a shroud of conspiracy. Emboldened perhaps by what he perceived as the considerable extent of his support, not least among the downtrodden rebel army in Etruria, whose debts he had promised to write off, Catiline was to be seen prominently in Rome – even attending the Curia in an attempt to clear his name. The head of the snake, then, was not buried amongst the shifting, concealing sands of the Republic’s streets, it was protesting innocence while furtively currying favour with the populace and those in power who ‘represented’ them.

Both Cicero and Catiline presented the primary hurdle to the other, behind which lay the realisation of their life’s goals. For Cicero, unravelling the conspiracy represented the chance to become a hero of Rome, a jewel in his homeland’s glorious history. To Catiline, grasping the reins of the Republic was an action he had long been denied; he had been beaten in the recent consulship election due to a fierce public haranguing by Cicero, leaving his failed campaign’s debt significant and unpayable. The seeds of revolt were thus planted. 

In fact for the malcontent Catiline the path of political advancement had long presented itself as barred by a raised drawbridge. It was in seeing his spiralling debt and acute political frustration in thousands of others that Catiline’s plan to bring down the drawbridge and storm the citadel had germinated. And now the time to strike, in the wake of Cicero’s hampering efforts in the Curia, was nigh. 

So, on the night of November 6, Catiline, and others whose economic and social health had waned under the leadership’s treatment, elected to eliminate the consul who so threatened the Catilinarian Conspiracy: the man who triumphantly brandished the incriminating letters in the Curia, the one who forewarned the coming of wrath from Etruria. The plan was to assassinate Cicero before the sun rose over a freshly imperilled Republic, rendered by Catiline bereft of its staunch defender and ripe for overthrowing.

If the visit from the letter-bearing Crassus that October night was cause for Cicero’s concern, the follow-up from those whose fingerprints were all over them was markedly an intensification of affairs. Two of Catiline’s closest and boldest conspirators – Cornelius and Vargunteius – elected to arrive at Cicero’s home under friendly pretences before cutting down the conspiracy’s chief impediment. 

***

To be a successful politician in Rome was to be available, to be on show. Visibility was paramount because it went hand in hand with an assertion that one had nothing to hide. This expectation – that politicians were to be highly accessible, lest suspicion fall on their doorstep – no doubt fed into Catiline’s deliberate public prominence in the preceding weeks. Res Publica, the domain of the consul was, after all, public affairs.

Leading a life so open, naturally, meant that the assassins knew where to find Cicero, and how to draw him out. A common method of delivering visibility unto the Roman people was the salutatio, a morning greeting to senators and dependants. It was under the falsehood of attending Cicero’s home for the daily salutation that the assassins arrived at the consul’s residence on the Palatine Hill. 

Access was not granted. A most strange occurrence, demonstrating poor political nous. Under any other circumstances, it was simply bad optics. Without the morning greetings, a consul attracted gossip, murmurings of what they really got up to in the concealing hours. It was not blind luck, however, that Cicero made himself unavailable on the morning of 7 November. He was forewarned: no access was to be granted for the salutatio –  the only guests in the home were bodyguards. So, the assassins were thwarted; Cicero lived to see the sun rise, but how did he know to be uncharacteristically hidden from view that morning? Who told him of the plan?

The answer was close to Catiline. For not only did Cicero’s voice speak against Catiline, and his eyes fix on his conspiratorial manoeuvring, Cicero’s ears were inside the plan’s inner circle. He had a man on the inside. A woman, actually, as Fulvia was the mistress of Quintus Curius, who had explained to his withdrawing mistress that his debts would soon be alleviated by Catiline, in addition to the grisly detail as to why. 

The information was brought right to Cicero by his informant. It was Fulvia that first informed the consul of the planned revolt, Fulvia who warned him of a possible assassination attempt, Fulvia who Cicero owed not only the foundation of his information as to the specifics of the plot but now, perhaps, his life. Cicero, with an assassination attempt to add to the mounting evidence, saw his chance to land a crippling blow on the conspiracy – to Catiline. 

The retaliation would be a different form of take-down, using a more refined method in which Cicero was, and still is, renowned as a master. His weapon of choice was words, and his use of them against Catiline was to be publicly demonstrated the next day. The Temple of Jupiter Stator was Cicero’s stage on November 8 63 BC, whereupon he would deliver what is now known as the First Catilinarian Oration. The result: a successful character assassination, rich in indictment and condemnation, dealt to Catiline’s face.

Cicero’s first speech against Catiline is a comprehensive denouncement known to history as one the most famous and powerful works of rhetoric and oratory ever produced. The wounds inflicted upon Catiline by Cicero’s words bled the conspiracy in a way which would not be easily stemmed. But his Catilinarian Orations not only precipitated the downfall of the conspiracy, they survive to serve us as fine examples of how to craft and deliver rhetoric as if our very lives depended on it. 

The First Oration: Delivered In Divine Company

Cicero’s decision to gather the senators in the Temple of Jupiter Stator was no mistake. Chiefly and pragmatically, it represented a sacred, fortified location; the Curia, the usual meeting place, was deemed too susceptible to the permeation of conspiracy, too exposed and vulnerable to the admission of would-be assassins. 

Self-defence aside, the Temple of Jupiter was also a place rich in symbolism – the perfect location to defend not only the bodies of the Republic but also its ideals. It had functioned as the seat of Jupiter (Zeus, to the Greeks) in Rome since, at least according to learned elders, the time of the city’s ancient kings. It had perhaps, then, been witness to the fall of the Roman monarchy. And to his manifest concern, Cicero saw in Catiline’s plans brushstrokes of the revolt which triggered the death of the monarchy. The Temple of Jupiter Stator, Cicero resolved, would not bear witness to another epochal shift of governance. 

Catiline, when he arrived to speak against Cicero in his own defence, would have been well aware of the majesty of the Temple and of its ability to act as a conduit of authority. Catiline was cognizant to the fact that, however much support for his cause among the populace he perceived, it was suddenly and profoundly of little use from behind the Temple’s doors. Cicero, his words amplified in more ways than one in this grand space, here demonstrated the importance of location in building a solid foundation from which to deliver an argument.

So, the stage ensured that this would be a battle of words between two men. And Cicero knew this; he thus delivered his historic oration directly to Catiline. In doing so, it starkly publicised the conspiracy, contrasting the forthright nature of Cicero against Catiline’s insidious deception. The spotlight, a tool of virtue, here revealed the abhorred weapon of poison, drawing the conspiracy from the shadows and into scathing exposure. This rhetorical technique, of directly confronting the opposition, bolstered Cicero’s ethos: his authority and character. 

Ethos, a central pillar of effective rhetoric, was vital for Cicero in this context as he sought to attack Catiline’s credibility and character while presenting his own as trustworthy. Cicero wanted Catiline to leave the Temple – to leave Rome – as a man revealed to the public as a seedy conspirator, not a strong liberator (ideally, as he goes on to exclaim, Cicero would see Catiline executed). And so he began the oration thusly, using rhetorical questions to isolate and expose the lead conspirator:

O Catiline, do you mean to cease abusing our patience? 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 nightly 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?

Cicero’s use of emotion-fuelled rhetorical questioning then builds gradatively in intensity towards a crescendo finish: ‘Alas! What degenerate days are these!’ This bold open, a jolt from convention, stirs the senate. Indeed, a sudden injection of high emotion, a rhetorical technique known as ecphonesis, serves as a strong emotional driver of narrative. Here, it seeks to create emotional resonation with the senators and is later used again to incite a certain sense of shame among those present, whose inaction regarding the conspiracy up to that point Cicero bemoans.

In all of this emotion – rhetorical questions addressed to Jupiter Himself, bursts of exclamation, words hot with indignation – senators (perhaps also you and I) would be forgiven for not realising that Cicero did not reference a single piece of evidence. 

Yet swept by his argument they were; it is only human nature to respond to high emotion, to gather behind the passionate. In rhetoric, the importance of evoking an intended emotion among the audience is known as pathos. Cicero wished to utilise this central mode of persuasion in a twofold manner. For the remiss senators, shying from duty in the shadow of revolt, he sought to instil anger and action. For the shrinking Catiline and his quietened followers? Fear, shame, flight. 

Cicero’s rousing opening to the oration had at last stirred the senators to see the extent of Catiline’s danger to the republic. From this raised platform, Cicero invests his accumulated emotional currency, underwritten by his now-established authority and credibility, in calling for Catiline’s head. ‘It was long ago, O Catiline’, he proclaims, ‘that you should have been dragged away by the consul’. Cicero continues: ‘And on your own head should have been brought down the destruction which you are now devising for us’. 

The consul goes on to cite historic examples of the Republic’s leadership dealing death in judgement, pointedly for lesser crimes than Catiline’s. Though Cicero’s seeming thirst for Catiline’s blood made some uneasy. Later, a rising senator by the name of Julius Caesar would make his case against Cicero’s lust for execution without trial. What was to come more immediately, however, was Cicero’s second act.

Once Cicero had laid the senate’s and his own negligence in not bringing Catiline’s plans to the altar of judgement sooner, he highlighted his awareness of the conspiracy. While not named, the value of Fulvia and others in equipping Cicero with this information is palpable. In Rome as in Etruria, he warns, sinister forces are planning for the Republic’s downfall. And the leader of the conspiracy, Cicero highlights, is allowed to roam the streets – permitted even to darken the senate with his presence that very morning.

Catiline goes on to be informed that his multiple assassination attempts against Cicero, from those during the consular election campaign to that which fuelled the oration, were thwarted and avoided. Cicero painted the picture that he had loomed over the shoulder of the conspiracy’s every move. Even in the recesses of Catiline’s secretive mind, Cicero had seemingly staged an outpost. Through all of this, Cicero effectively returns to the same ‘advice’ given to Catiline, to relieve Rome of his presence. Retreat in shame, Cicero urged Catiline, until the shadow of the conspiracy no longer reached Rome. Dawn would not lengthen the shadow, only contrast its darkness against the light of the secured Republic. 

The repeated calls for Catiline to leave Rome serves as an example of the rhetorical technique of reinforcing a central point, returning often to a key desired outcome. Catiline’s self-banishment would be read as an admission of guilt. And one which would arm Cicero, so he hoped, with the legal mandate to eventually execute him. Indeed, much of the First Oration is aimed at causing Catiline’s exit from Rome. Cicero keenly highlights this is no consular order, lest Catiline’s guilt would remain slightly, yet crucially, veiled. 

He also cannot, without the entirety of Rome on his side, call for Catiline’s immediate death. If he did so at this tender stage, Cicero would be labelled a tyrant, not to mention create a martyr in the process. Stamping on the egg sac would only release the spawn it had nurtured. No, the death of Catiline would be a dressing over Rome, yet with his supporters still in the city the wound would continue to fester. 

Herein lies the crux of the First Oration: the senate’s inaction was over, the exposed Catiline would leave Rome in shame and this would empower Cicero for future action. And so the indignity that piled upon Catiline worsened. Cicero offers an anatomy of Catiline’s closeted skeletons, speaking of the murder of his first wife, yet refusing to elaborate. There was no need. Letting those present explore such dark topics in their own internal monologue would elicit a response more profound, a reaction based on personal, not lectured, values. All the while, leaving areas unsaid prevented Cicero from straying away from those all-important central objectives. 

As the impassioned Cicero reached the end of his address, his rhetoric continued to build a dim picture for Catiline. Cicero also skilfully weaponised the senate’s hush, labelling it as agreement with his cause. This deafening silence was framed to rid Catiline of any notions of senatorial support, while representing Cicero’s allowance to continue his call for self-banishment.

The final appeal, important in persuasive rhetoric, reiterates the fundamental call. Jupiter, ever-present in the Temple for the entire speech, and the highest source of authority, is lastly called upon:

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. And you, Jupiter, almighty, whose name has been glorified since the founding of this city, you who are worthily called its support and protector and the rule of the Roman people, protect from Catiline and his accomplices your temples and altars, the buildings and walls of the city, the lives and property of the citizens. And the haters of all good, the enemies of the fatherland, the ravagers of all Italy, whom the unity of evil deeds has bound in one terrible conspiracy, destroy them, condemn them, both in this life and in the life to come, to eternal sufferings.

Catiline protested his lack of trial prior to his exile, one forced upon him in all but official sentencing. He even offered to go under house arrest (at Cicero’s home, no less). But that night he left the city, leaving behind scathing words. And so the general – bound for Etruria – would meet his army.

Second Oration: Communicating A Crisis

Cicero had secured Catiline’s exit from Rome, leaving the lead conspirator with a decidedly wounded dignity. Jupiter would, of course, gossip with the gods over the decisive rhetorical victory that occurred in His temple. This therefore left Cicero the task of informing the people of the Republic.

Addressed to citizens in the forum, what would become the Second Catilinarian Oration demanded a different style of rhetorical delivery. Cicero needed to allay fear and panic among the people, while uniting them against Catiline and his co-conspirators in the wake of recent events. For Catiline did not leave silently. Moreover, much of his support also remained hidden within and beyond the senate. Cicero knew it would take more yet to wrench the anchored tendrils of conspiracy from Rome’s soil.

There were also those who adhered to the notion that Catiline was forced to escape in avoidance of persecution from Cicero’s personal and political vendetta against him. So, the consul was keenly aware of a need to control the narrative. And, to achieve this, a masterful piece of crisis communication was required. If his first speech identified the wound to the senate, the second was intended to share it openly with the people, uniting them in drawing poison out of the Republic. 

The Second Oration took place the very morning after Catiline’s exile – November 9 – and the immediacy with which Cicero addressed the people demonstrated his keen awareness of crisis rhetoric. Controlling the narrative would be far harder should gossip and panic be allowed to fester in the vacuum left in Catiline’s wake. Remember also the importance of visibility in Roman politics. So, Cicero pointedly acted swiftly and publicly to be present in Catiline’s absence, asserting his credibility as contrary to the conspiracy’s secretiveness. 

Cicero began by declaring Catiline’s exit, framing it as a deeply relieving victory for the city. He wanted the people to see Catiline’s exile as the result of tactically bringing him into the open, not a result of forcing his banishment without trial. His credibility hinged on the populace adopting this sentiment as the truth of the event. Indeed, Cicero is pained to reiterate his own restraint – he did not immediately kill Catiline, after all – throughout the public oration.

In saying that Catiline’s ‘inhuman and portentous malice will no longer be devising means for the destruction of these walls while actually within their confines’, Cicero does not announce the end of the conspiracy, more that Rome ‘shall no longer feel his dagger pricking’ upon its flesh. To fight an enemy stationed outside of the city, Cicero explained, was a clearer task than battling an internal foe. Better to fight a snake at your feet than one writhing in your sleeve. 

Cicero then called upon the remaining supporters to take the Aurelian Road out of Rome in their leader’s footsteps. After continuing to control the narrative through emphasising his moderation in letting Catiline expose himself (and live to enter exile), Cicero turned attention to Catiline’s remaining supporters of all classes. Recognising the diversity of sympathy for Catiline’s cause, Cicero spoke to each stakeholder’s personal reasons for buying into the conspiracy. In crisis Rhetoric, persuasion relies on understanding the type of knot(s) one seeks to untie. In segmenting his counter-arguments and threats against Catiline’s promises for each audience group, Cicero’s rhetoric percolated through the societal breadth of his enemy’s support base. 

First, the landed men whose heavy debt Catiline had promised to cancel. Cicero sharply criticised their financial management, how they clung onto their un-lucrative estates when they could pay off their own debt by selling the components of their upper-class facade. Catiline, Cicero said bluntly, made an impossible promise to write off their debt. Besides, this foolish class expected that respect for their property boundaries would be upheld in a self-inflicted civil war. The auctioneer’s gavel would be the weapon used against this group, but also the tool to bring about its financial relief.

And to the power-hungry class, seeing in Catiline the opportunity to obtain a position of long yearned-for authority? Cicero disbanded their notions of support among the populace, highlighting the realities of political service and his effective (then and indeed now) navigation of them as consul. Besides, in a city withered by bloodshed and revolt, the stability of their stolen roles would be precarious at best.

He then spoke of the Sullan veterans and the remainder of the rabble which composed the Etrurian forces. The Republic, he clearly signalled, would expel any return to Sulla’s scarring conflict, bringing about the inevitable ruin of the wretched supporter base who would sooner die with dishonour than take responsibility for their predicaments. 

Lastly, the dredges of criminal society and Catiline’s close friends Cicero bade not abandon their leader. Perish with your despot, he told them. May the falsity of Catiline’s promises and the delusion of his vision for Rome be made clear upon their eyes as they closed for the final time.

In isolating each faction of support for Catiline, Cicero highlighted the depth of his knowledge of the Conspiracy, as well as reducing the common citizen’s fear of the enemy. Why, he explained, should an organised and united Rome fear elderly veterans, the financially desolate, simple farmers, blind loyalists?

Make no mistake, Cicero framed the coming conflict as decisive for the Republic’s future (of course, the greater the threat he portrayed Catiline et al. the greater the glory he could claim for bringing them down), however he also painted support of Catiline as morally unacceptable, putting those swayed in undesirable company. This rhetoric successfully polarised Catiline’s base against the political and military might of the republic.

Cicero reserved his final warning for the conspirators still present in Rome. His courses of action now unrestricted thanks to his rhetorical publication of the conspiracy, Cicero said of these despised partisans:

If my treatment of them hitherto has appeared to any one too mild, that leniency was only temporary, till what was concealed might emerge: for the future I cannot allow myself to forget that this is my native land, that I am consul of this people, that I must choose between surviving with my country men and dying in their cause.

Soon, an acceleration of events would bring these conspirators into Cicero’s clutches. And the ensuing debate as to what their fate should be was one which had defining outcomes, not least for Cicero’s own future.

Conspirators Unearthed

In the wake of Cicero’s address to the Republic, Catiline and his second-in-command Manlius were officially made public enemies. Catiline is said to have modelled himself with the future in mind upon his arrival to the camp, sporting consular insignia. Manlius meanwhile, who had raised the Etrurian forces thus far, continued to drive recruitment after stepping aside, a practice which had become imperative and less opaque in light of the conspiracy becoming public knowledge. 

The pair may even have been aware that Cicero’s co-consul, Gaius Antonius Hybrida, had been dispatched with an army to crush the Catilinarian forces before they could emerge from the confines of their Etrurian military camp. Certainly aware of Hybridia’s mobilisation were Catiline’s loyalists who remained in Rome. These as-yet-unnamed conspirators no doubt looked to the horizon as Hybridia marched forth in the Republic’s defence. Their view punctuated by distant spear-tips, bristling like a murmuration where the Cassian Road met the northern sky. 

The Rome-based conspirators, seeking allies in the face of impending large-scale confrontation, approached a visiting Gallic tribe: the Allobroges. The envoy of Gauls, who had travelled to Rome seeking tax relief, had spoken to a number of conspirators during their time in the Republic’s heartland. To Catiline’s supporters, the Allobroges represented a chance to inspire revolt in Gaul. If the lands of the Republic joined the cause, they thought, the fires would be too numerous for the leadership to put out at once. And so Cicero and his allies would be stretched thin, overextended, and ready to break. 

Moreover, Catiline’s allies knew that, however stark his words against them in the Second Oration, their names had yet to pass Cicero’s lips. Even with a tightening net, there would always be room in Rome for nefarious deeds to go unseen. Or so they thought. 

When the Allobroges’ ambassadors sought the company of Cicero, the embattled consul was naturally inclined to oblige them. After being told of the treasonous conspiracy by those looking to invite them into revolt, the visiting envoys had reported their troubling propositions to the Republic’s Patron to the Allobroges, Fabius Sanga. In turn, Sanga briefed Cicero of the golden opportunity to unmask the perpetrators. A high degree of discretion was required of Cicero’s new double agents. Tasking them with feigning cooperation, Cicero directed the Allobroges to feign support for the conspirators. Their central objective: to obtain written proof of the conspiracy, complete with the longed-for names of those at large in Rome. 

Success at last. The Allobroges, bearing letters detailing the conspiracy, departed from Rome. However, the letters, much like those gathered by Crassus the previous month, would not reach their intended recipient. Instead, Cicero now studied the names inscribed on the Allobroges’ incriminating letters. And, by December 3, five high-ranking conspirators were arrested – Cicero’s use of espionage had worked. On December 4, Cicero kept the public fully informed through delivering unto them the Third Oration. 

The Third Oration announced the arrests and unveiled the concrete evidence to the people. Bolstering morale and further vindicating his actions publicly, Cicero here remained in control of the narrative. Cicero’s third deliverance primed Rome for the coming debate – when the urban arm of Catiline’s conspiracy would be put on trial.

The Consul, The Traitor, The Tribune, And The Emperor

The decision regarding the conspirator’s fate was to be made in the Temple of Concord. Naturally, the Goddess Concordia, representing civic order and harmony, enjoyed special veneration in times of tumult such as those sewn by Catiline and his allies. Her residence in the Forum had previously been home to senate meetings at times of significant unrest, and would go on to become a monument to past conflicts. The very present decision regarding the punishment for the conspirators, however, was the only thing on the mind of the senators who passed into Concordia’s company on December 5.

The dishonoured quintet of conspirators on trial were not obscure figures; their names on the Allobroges’ letters invited instant recognition and concern for how high Catiline’s tentacles had extended. Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura was a sitting praetor, this being the position of a magistrate second only to the consuls. Gaius Cornelius Cethegus, a prominent if shady senator, also found himself threshing in Cicero’s net.

Cicero’s role during the proceedings was not as it had been in the approach to this legal conclusion. He did not speak first, for this was to be an open debate. As consul, he was inherently forbidden even to directly express his opinion (that said, Cicero’s views were already well-publicised and, throughout the Fourth Oration, his true opinion was barely buried below the surface of his nonaligned words).

Cicero also knew that even with his emergency powers (which were not legally protecting), neither the consul or the senate could pass the death penalty without trial; capital punishment was reserved only for when the popular vote of the people favoured it. What he needed was to guide the senate in his favour, forming a cushioning support with which to lean on in the aftermath. His future, he suspected, may rely on being able to justify his intended actions as following through on the will of the senate. 

How, though, to circumvent the inviolable rights of five Roman citizens, without explicitly stating a personal opinion – all while avoiding subsequent prosecution for passing death without trial? As he mulled this balancing act, Cicero watched as the first speaker rose in Concordia’s domain. 

Consul-elect Decimus Julius Silanus answered Cicero’s opening call most agreeably. As did the ex-consuls whose voices followed. Summary execution, despite the legal hurdles, looked increasingly likely for Lentulus, Cethegus, and the trio of other conspirators. The debate, however, pivoted when praetor-elect Julius Caesar spoke in merciful tones. 

A time of course would come when the imperium of one man would effect summary execution without trial, but the unlikely figure of Julius Caesar here argued against this abuse of the Republic’s established laws. Instead, he proposed to imprison the conspirators for life, confiscate their estates, and prevent a bloody stain on the senate’s honour. Many appeared to agree with the man who would go on to shatter the Republic. 

Cicero too felt the prevailing winds shift away from his death-dealing desires. Thus he was compelled to deliver his Fourth Oration with the immediate aim to draw sympathy away from Caesar’s corner. However, Cicero remained hamstrung by his inability to decisively side with the argument of Silanus. The ship needed to be steered back on course using deftness and a veil of neutrality, lest Cicero would make enemies of Caesar and those in support of his stance.

The Fourth Oration

Cicero’s words sought to rebrand the perceived cruelty that execution would entail. True cruelty, he posed, would be to doom the citizens of Rome to the coming revolt, to speak into the corners of Roman lands that treason was dealt with lightly, to show leniency to those seeking the death of the Republic and her servants. Here, the effective use of rhetoric represented an attempt to reframe the debate in Cicero’s favour, demonstrating that execution was a necessary act of protection. 

That said, Cicero knew he had to explore both sides of the debate, so he duly praised Caesar’s show of compassion and mercy. But, he carefully highlighted the flaws of Ceaser’s position, pointing always to public safety as the lynchpin of the impending decision. This use of logical analysis is found throughout all four Catilinarian speeches.

Cicero, never missing an opportunity to build his ethos, painted himself as a righteous leader, desperate to see the salvation and survival of the Republic. He keenly pointed to history throughout, looking to weigh on the minds of those gathered in the Temple of Concordia, writing it in that very moment. Previous periods of turmoil, he said, were not ameliorated with merciful acts – the source had been quelled. The people of Rome expected their leadership to embrace strength and decisiveness. In inviting the populace into the equation, Cicero highlights the outward pressure and social popularity of their decision. It demonstrates pathos: an appeal to emotion. 

Do not fear the political implications of voting for death, he concluded, history will favour this outcome as honourable and indispensable. 

Despite Cicero’s firm ‘guidance’, the senate remained split between mercy or death. 

Father Of The Homeland

It was the tribune-elect whose words pushed the senate over the precipice. Sensing that Cicero had not fully swayed the senate, Cato the Younger ardently argued for the death penalty. His exact words are disputed, but he likely argued that capital punishment would send a clear message to sympathisers, inciting mass defection from Catiline’s case. Cato is also said to have exhumed the past. He warned it would be shameful to shy away from the difficult decisions made so decisively by previous leaders. 

Regardless of the possible pathways of Cato’s argument, all lead to the same confirmed conclusion: the execution of the arrested conspirators. Cicero must have found Cato’s grasping of the reins most propitious for his cause. Cato, in fact, would become a staunch advocate of conservative Roman ideals, which he saw as in worryingly decline during these final years of the Republic. 

And so the five conspirators were killed by the leadership which they sought to overthrow. Cicero personally oversaw their strangulation, and as each body dropped to the floor the weight upon the consul, and Rome, lifted a modicum. ‘They have lived’, he declared. 

The public announcement of the executions was met by the senate bestowing Cicero as Pater Patriae: Father of The Homeland. The title was only awarded twice in the entire history of the Republic, and would be reserved only for long-serving emperors in Rome’s future. The Father had used his words wisely indeed to Rome’s – and also, certainly, to his – ends. In all of this, however, it was an inescapable fact that Catiline remained at large.

Catiline’s Fate

Cato was correct in his assertions. Support for Catiline did indeed diminish as news of the executions rode a bloody wave through the Republic and beyond. Finally, Cicero had proved that there was bite to his bark, ensuring a portentous outcome for Catiline which soon darkened the latter’s outlook and disposition. 

Upon hearing that his web of support had been cleaved, he led his army in an escape towards Gaul, only to find three legions blocking his retreat. Catiline, turning southwards, resolved to face the army of Antonius, camped in Pistoria. Caught between the northern legions and the consular forces, it is little surprise that Catiline opted to face those led by Cicero’s co-consul. 

It was January of 62 BC by the time the two forces met. By then Catiline’s rebel army had eroded over winter from desertion, leaving him likely outnumbered by the Republic’s forces. The echoes of Cicero’s words would hang over Catiline as armed conflict approached. And, to those who did not witness the consul’s addresses, the emergency mobilisation of the Republic – due in large part to Cicero’s intense rhetoric – was plain to see before them: sharp words had bred pointed swords.

Despite spirited resistance, Catiline’s army was routed by Antonius’ forces, marshalled by Marcus Petreius. Catiline fell in the Battle of Pistoria, which resulted in Antonius being hailed Imperator, joining Cicero in the award of an honorific title stemming from thwarting Catiline. With the death of Catiline, naturally, came the end of the conspiracy. Cicero, however, would live to feel the aftershocks of Catiline’s spite.

Post-Catiline: A New Rhetoric Rules Supreme

In the aftermath of the conspiracy, Cicero’s enemies were vocal and already regrouping. They sought to rid him of his political advantage, which they perceived as selfishly and unlawfully gained. In executing high-standing citizens without trial, these detractors castigated Cicero for disregarding the very laws of the Republic he claimed to hold so sacred. Indeed (granted by hindsight) the irony in Julius Caesar, a catalyst of the Republic’s eventual demise, arguing most passionately for a more lawful course of action is clear. Both then and now, it does not paint Cicero in the pristine glory he appeared to desire.

Then, in 58 BC, Cicero was banished under a pointed new law which targeted those who had executed a citizen without trial. In the years following Cicero’s triumphant return to Rome, an epochal transformation was under way. Here, the Republic’s death throes were punching out from a thick blanket of civil war. Words would not save Cicero’s idealised Rome on this occasion. Cicero promptly sided with Pompey the Great before being pardoned by the man who defeated him, Julius Caesar.

Outliving Caesar, Cicero saw in the proto-emperor’s adopted son and heir the chance to revive the Republic. And so he mentored (or manipulated) young Octavian in a calculated political alliance. That is, until Octavian betrayed Cicero: he reluctantly included his name in widespread proscriptions, resulting in Cicero’s assassination in 43 BC. Ultimately, the faithful statesman and master of rhetoric died at the hands of the very institution he was attempting to prevent from entering existence.

The culmination of the next civil war saw Octavian become sole ruler of the newly birthed Roman Empire. The ‘first man’ eventually became known as Augustus Ceasar, and his line would leave the Republic which Cicero treasured a distant memory. Yet Cicero would have the respect of the Roman Empire, known as the father who died protecting his vision of the homeland. 

Conclusion: The Rhetoric Of A Rhetoric

Invevitably, Cicero’s grasping of the narrative as the conspiracy unfolded has resulted in his version of events being dominant in the sources. However, contemporary and modern scholars alike have posited that Cicero sought to capitalise on his position during the conspiracy. In making the threat to Rome out as greater than perhaps it was – indeed as one existential in nature – Cicero knew he would be seen at the helm of saving the Republic’s very way of life. The outcome would be a boon of political currency, minted by Cicero’s careful overstatement of Catiline’s true threat.

Cicero’s Catilinarian Orations were published in the years following the conspiracy, likely to his own gain – and unlikely to be word-for-word renditions. It is acts of self-vaunting such as this which have also pointed historians to a more balanced view of the extent of the conspiracy, and fed the ongoing contention regarding Cicero’s handling of it. The Catilinarian Orations however remain celebrated as some of the finest works of rhetoric to survive to us. And, regardless of the intentions for their publication, Ciceronian rhetoric remains carefully studied today in schools of history, law, communications, and politics. Cicero, then, had his way: he is remembered as the man who saved Rome with his words.

***

The true human impact of rhetoric is harder to grasp when presented on the page. Delivered in-person, to the degree that Cicero had mastered it, no one is immune to being swept up in fervor and spurred to action. Such is the power of effective rhetoric that, were one granted the chance to voice criticisms to Cicero, one would be liable to leave the room convinced utterly otherwise. Therein lies the enduring character of Cicero, and the potency of rhetoric. 

Epilogue: In The House Of Augustus 

Towards the end of Plutarch’s biographical Life of Cicero, we find ourselves in the room of Augustus’ grandson. By now, the rule of the Emperor was steadfast and dynastic – everything that Cicero, decades previously, had feared. 

Plutarch writes that the young boy was reading a work by Cicero. And when Augustus Caesar entered the room, his grandson was terrified. His fear rooted in being discovered absorbing the words of the long-dead statesman, the orator who was martyred defending the Republic which Augustus had ended. 

Hiding the book in his gown was no use; the ever-perceptive emperor had spotted him as he worryingly squirrelled it away. Plutarch writes of the ensuing interaction between grandfather and grandson:

…Ceaser saw it, and took the book, and read a great part of it as he stood, and then gave it back to the youth, saying “A learned man, my child, a learned man and a lover of his country”.