by Cicero
The envoys duly informed Cicero of the plan that had been arranged. He then ordered two of the praetors, Lucius Valerius Flaccus and Gaius Pomptinus, both military men, to place an ambush at the Mulvian Bridge on the appointed night, that of 2 December. In the early hours of the 3rd, the envoys and Volturcius walked into the trap. The envoys immediately surrendered. Volturcius made some resistance and then he too surrendered. The praetors took them, together with the incriminating letters, to Cicero.
Armed with this evidence (still kept sealed), Cicero gave orders that five of the conspirators—Lentulus, Cethegus, and Statilius, who had given letters to the envoys, together with Gabinius, whom the envoys would be able to identify, and a further conspirator, Marcus Caeparius of Tarracina—should be brought to him at once. The first four were fetched (they would not have known of the ambush at the Mulvian Bridge), and at the same time a cache of arms was removed from Cethegus’ house. Caeparius, however, had heard of the discovery of the plot and had left for Apulia, where he was intending to instigate a slave revolt among the shepherds (evidently Metellus Creticus had been successful in putting down the earlier rising there). (We know nothing about Caeparius or what the evidence was which justified Cicero in ordering his arrest; perhaps he was named in the letters given to the envoys, and Cicero knew this.)
Cicero meanwhile had called a meeting of the senate in the temple of Concord, and had given orders for the building to be surrounded by an armed guard. Out of regard for Lentulus’ status as a praetor and fellow magistrate, he led him into the building by the hand; the other three conspirators followed under guard, and the meeting began. Volturcius was questioned first. Initially he denied all knowledge of the conspiracy; but when he had been promised immunity from prosecution in return for his evidence, he revealed what he knew, and named, besides the five conspirators whose arrest had been ordered, Autronius (the consul-elect of 65 who had been convicted of malpractice), Servius Cornelius Sulla (a senator and distant relation of the dictator Sulla), Vargunteius (one of the men who had attempted to assassinate Cicero on the morning of 7 November), and many others. Next, the envoys told their story, which corroborated Volturcius’ evidence but may not have added much to it—although they did mention Cassius, who had declined to give them a letter and then fled. After this, the three conspirators whose letters had been captured were made to acknowledge their seals, and the letters were opened and read out. The contents were found to be sufficiently incriminating, and the men admitted their guilt; Gabinius also admitted his guilt, though he had written no letter. Lentulus was denounced by his brother-in-law, Lucius Julius Caesar, the consul of 64.
At the end of the meeting, the senate passed a decree. Cicero was thanked in the most generous terms for having saved Rome from extreme danger; the two praetors who carried out the ambush were thanked; and Antonius was thanked for having severed his connection with the conspirators (this must have been well meant, but inevitably sounds damning). Lentulus was to resign his office, and each of the five men whose arrest Cicero had ordered was to be placed in the custody of a senator: Lentulus was taken by the aedile Publius Cornelius Lentulus Spinther (the future consul of 57), Cethegus by an ex-praetor Quintus Cornificius, Statilius by Caesar, Gabinius by Crassus, and Caeparius (who appears to have been brought back to Rome at the end of the day) by Gnaeus Terentius. A further four conspirators—Cassius, Umbrenus, and two others, a Sullan colonist from Faesulae called Publius Furius, and a senator, Quintus Annius Chilo—were also to be placed in custody as soon as they were captured. (It is strange that only four people fell into this category, and not, for instance, Cicero’s two would-be assassins, Cornelius and Vargunteius; the senate must have decided only to proceed against those against whom the evidence was unimpeachable). Finally, a thanksgiving was to be offered to the gods in Cicero’s name—the first time such a thing had ever been done in honour of a civilian. In addition (not part of the decree), Catulus hailed Cicero as the father of his country, and Lucius Gellius Poplicola (the consul of 72 and censor of 70, whose good judgement in expelling Lentulus from the senate had just been dramatically confirmed) declared that in his view Cicero deserved the civic crown (a decoration normally awarded only to soldiers who had saved a citizen’s life in battle). The senate certainly made amends for its failure to heed Cicero’s warnings about Catiline earlier in the year.
By the time the meeting ended, it was evening. Cicero walked out of the temple, stepped a few paces forward into the forum, and there gave the people a full account of everything that had taken place. This speech, the Third Catilinarian (In Catilinam III), caused a complete turn-around in public opinion. Until now, the urban plebs had supported Catiline. Now, thanks largely to Cicero’s revelation of Catiline’s plans for burning parts of the city, the people cursed him and lauded Cicero to the skies. Sallust says they reacted as if they had been freed from slavery (Cat. 48.1–2).
The next day, 4 December, an informer, Lucius Tarquinius, gave information in the senate incriminating Crassus, but was disbelieved and imprisoned. It is certainly inconceivable that a man of Crassus’ wealth, and an ally of the equestrian financiers, should have supported a movement for the cancellation of debts, and in any case Crassus had earlier demonstrated his loyalty by giving Cicero the letters which had been delivered to his house. Later Crassus suspected that Cicero was behind the allegation; but this is unlikely since Cicero refused to accept a false allegation made against Caesar by Catulus (whom Caesar had recently defeated in the election for pontifex maximus) and Gaius Calpurnius Piso (the consul of 67). The meeting also voted rewards for Volturcius and the envoys of the Allobroges. Finally, the nine conspirators whose cases were discussed the day before were declared to have acted against the interests of the state (like their earlier declaration that Catiline and Manlius were public enemies, this was a formulaic expression of disapproval, but one without generally accepted constitutional significance). While the senate was meeting, the followers of Lentulus attempted to gather a force together to set him free, and Cethegus urged his own followers to do the same for him.
On 5 December (‘the Nones of December’) a third meeting of the senate was held, in the temple of Concord, to decide what should be done with the five conspirators who were being held in custody, and the other four, should they be caught. Cicero was later to say (at Att. 12.21.1, written in 45 BC) that he had already made (i.e., presumably, expressed) a judgement on their fate before he consulted the senate on 5 December, but he does not say what judgement, or when (it has been suggested that he may have said something in the spoken version of the Third Catilinarian). In any case, the debate of 5 December was a full and free exchange of views, with many individual changes of mind as powerful and persuasive speeches were made, in a situation in which there was (as modern scholarship abundantly confirms) no right answer.
Cicero first called on Silanus, the consul-elect, for his opinion. Silanus said that the men deserved ‘the extreme penalty’, which everyone not unnaturally took to mean execution—a punishment which would certainly have had a deterrent effect on Catiline’s supporters, but would not have been legal, since citizens could not be put to death without trial, and the senate was not at this date a criminal court (the senate’s various decrees, such as the SCU, could not alter the fact that the conspirators were citizens and were entitled to citizens’ legal rights). Next Cicero called the other consul-elect, Murena: he expressed the same opinion as Silanus; and so did fourteen ex-consuls. After that it was the turn of the praetors-elect to give their opinion. Caesar was called, and proposed a quite different punishment. Pointing out the dangerous precedent that execution would set, and hinting at the legal difficulties, he proposed instead life imprisonment: each conspirator would be held in a strongly fortified Italian town, and no one would ever be allowed to raise the question of their release. The proposal was completely impractical, as Cicero was quick to point out, and was in fact no more lawful than execution was. But it cleverly allowed Caesar to present himself
before the senate as an implacable enemy of the conspirators, and then to appear before the people as the man who had attempted to save their lives. In this way he was able to enhance his status as a popular politician, an upholder of the rights of the people against the arbitrary power of magistrates. (Crassus, who was also believed to be sympathetic to Catiline, avoided committing himself to any view by staying at home.)
After this, it was no longer at all clear what was the right thing to do, and various speakers sided either with Silanus or with Caesar; an ex-praetor, Tiberius Claudius Nero, proposed putting off a decision until Catiline had been defeated. Cicero then intervened: in his Fourth Catilinarian (In Catilinam IV), he reviewed the two proposals, made clear (but did not explicitly state) his own preference for that of Silanus, and pressed the senate to come to a decision before nightfall. He also asked it not to be influenced by the possible consequences of their decision for himself. Since the senate was technically only an advisory body, the responsibility for any action taken would lie entirely with Cicero—though a senatorial vote would naturally give him considerable moral backing. (Later, for example at Phil. 2.18, he would sometimes claim that he had merely obeyed the senate’s orders: this falsifies the constitutional position. His view that the conspirators had by their own actions forfeited their legal rights was equally spurious, though perhaps widely shared.)
At this point Silanus made a second speech, and feebly explained that by ‘the extreme penalty’ he had really meant life imprisonment: effectively, he withdrew his proposal. Speaker after speaker then gave their support to Caesar’s proposal; one of these was Cicero’s brother Quintus, a praetor-elect, who did not want his brother to have an illegal course of action forced upon him. So a consensus emerged in favour of life imprisonment. Only Catulus seems not to have wavered in his support for execution.
It was only now that the tribunes-elect, relatively junior members in the hierarchy, were called on to speak; and Cato, a young man who had recently demonstrated his uncompromising views at the trial of Murena, stood up. Castigating his brother-in-law Silanus for changing his mind (as a strict Stoic, Cato believed that changes of mind could not be justified), he bitterly attacked Caesar’s proposal, accused him of being in league with Catiline, reproached the senators for their squeamishness, and argued vigorously for execution as being in accordance with the spirit of Roman tradition (even though the situation itself was unparalleled). It was an extraordinary performance, all the more remarkable in view of Cato’s junior rank, and it marked him out to his contemporaries as a man of greatness. In his Catiline (51–2), Sallust gives his own versions of the speeches of both Caesar and Cato (he ignores the other ones, including Cicero’s, in order to concentrate on these two), and allows the reader to infer that these two men—utterly different, but equally brilliant—will go on to become the two defining talents of the closing era of the republic. (Plutarch, Cat. Mi. 23.1–2 is also an important source for Cato’s speech: it differs significantly from Sallust’s account, and is probably closer to the truth. Details have been taken from both sources in the summary given above.)
When Cato sat down, the senate burst into applause. All the ex-consuls and a large number of others changed their minds and agreed with him. The question was put to a vote, and Cato’s proposal was carried overwhelmingly. Even Cethegus’ brother is said to have voted for execution. A further proposal from Caesar, that the conspirators’ property should not be confiscated, nearly caused a riot, and some equites who had come in support of Cicero drew their swords on Caesar as he was leaving the building. (Cicero himself made sure afterwards that the men’s property was not confiscated.)
By this time it was evening, and Cicero put the senate’s decree into effect without delay. The five conspirators were fetched from where they were being held and led through the forum towards the state prison. Again, Cicero personally escorted Lentulus, since he, though no longer a praetor, was still an ex-consul; the other four were escorted by praetors. One after another the men were taken into the prison and lowered, by a rope, into a squalid subterranean execution chamber, the Tullianum, where they were immediately strangled. When the last of the men was dead, Cicero turned round to face the crowd and announced, ‘They have lived’ (‘Vixere’, the odd formulation being chosen to avoid bad luck). The crowd, silent until now, erupted into a state of euphoria. As Cicero made his way back through the forum to his house, the people crowded round him applauding him and calling him the saviour and founder of his country. Women holding lamps stood on the rooftops watching the scene. (This account of Cicero’s warm reception in the forum comes from Plutarch, Cic. 22.5–7; but given that his source will be Cicero’s lost account of his consulship, written in 60, there may be some exaggeration in Cicero’s favour.) Cicero had overwhelming public backing for the action that he had taken, and he had undoubtedly saved the city from a bloody conflict. But he had broken the law, and the responsibility was his alone.
On 10 December the new tribunes entered office. One of them, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Nepos, lost no time in speaking out against the executions and threatening to veto Cicero’s retiring speech, declaring that one who had punished others without allowing them the right to speak in their own defence ought not to be allowed the right to speak himself. On 29 December, Cicero’s last day as consul, he carried out his threat: he and another tribune, Lucius Calpurnius Bestia, who was allegedly a Catilinarian conspirator, vetoed the speech, allowing Cicero to do no more than swear the traditional oath that he had obeyed the laws during his tenure of office. But Cicero neatly altered the wording of the oath, swearing instead that he had saved the state; and the people responded with an oath affirming this themselves. This incident seriously damaged Cicero’s relations with Nepos’ brother, Metellus Celer, who had been sent to Picenum, but had now moved up to his province of Cisalpine Gaul, the province Cicero had turned down (and which he may have helped Celer to obtain in the hope of buying off his brother’s opposition); an awkward exchange of letters between the two is preserved at Fam. 5.1–2 (January 62 BC).
On 1 January 62 Silanus and Murena became consuls; Caesar and Quintus Cicero were among the praetors. Nepos persisted in his campaign against Cicero, and attacked him in the senate; but the senate passed a decree granting immunity from prosecution to anyone involved in the punishment of the conspirators. Nepos was opposed in particular by Cato, his colleague as tribune; Cato harangued the people and persuaded them to vote Cicero greater honours than those the senate had voted, including that of father of his country (an appellation applied by Catulus to Cicero on 3 December, but not part of the senate’s decree). (The conflict between Cicero and Cato over the trial of Murena appears to have been quickly put aside.) Next, Nepos proposed a bill, with Caesar’s support, to recall Pompey from the east to save Rome from Catiline (Nepos’ half-sister Mucia was Pompey’s wife). Together with another tribune, Quintus Minucius Thermus, Cato vetoed the proposal: Thermus physically stopped Nepos’ mouth as he was reciting the bill, violence ensued, and Murena stepped in to save Cato from Nepos’ armed supporters. The senate then passed the SCU a second time, whereupon Nepos left Rome, with threats of revenge, to join Pompey in the east. Caesar was suspended from his praetorship, but was soon reinstated.
It was at around this time, at the beginning of January 62, that Catiline was finally defeated. The approach of Antonius from the south at the end of November had made him abandon his camp at Faesulae and take to the mountains. Then news came of the executions at Rome: this prompted most of his followers to desert, reducing his force from 10,000 to 3,000 (there is no good reason to think that at the end he abandoned his policy of refusing the help of slaves). The suppression of the conspiracy in the city made a march on Rome out of the question, and the planned outbreaks in other parts of Italy had come to nothing. Catiline therefore decided there was nothing for it but to cross the Apennines into Cisalpine Gaul, and then make for Narbonese Gaul, where he would perhaps find the Allobroges, whose grievances had not
been redressed, sympathetic to his cause. But to the north he found his way blocked by the three legions of Metellus Celer (who was probably at Bononia). Deciding that he would do better against his old ally Antonius, who might perhaps not fight too hard, he turned back to face him at Pistoria (24 miles north-west of Faesulae). He was right in thinking that his friend did not relish the contest: pleading an attack of gout, Antonius handed over the command to his legate Marcus Petreius, a professional soldier of more than thirty years’ experience. In the ensuing battle of Pistoria, Catiline’s army fought long and hard (he had Sullan veterans on his side), but in the end was annihilated. Manlius was one of the first to fall; there were no survivors. Sallust tells us that when Catiline’s body was found, he was still just breathing, and his face retained the fierce look that had characterized it during his life. Antonius had the head cut off and sent to Rome as proof that Catiline was no more. (On Catiline’s movements, see G. V. Sumner, CP 58 (1963), 215–19; we cannot be sure, however, how the chronology of Catiline’s defeat relates to the chronology of events in Rome.) After the battle, further risings elsewhere in Italy were crushed by the praetors, among the Paeligni (in the centre of Italy, to the east of Rome) by Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, the future consul of 59, and in Bruttium by Cicero’s brother Quintus.