The Orations, Volume 2 by Cicero

Author:Cicero [Cicero]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Philosophie
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2018-03-13T23:00:00+00:00

THE FIRST ORATION OF M T. CICERO AGAINST LUCIUS CATILINA. DELIVERED IN THE SENATE.

THE ARGUMENT.

Lucius Catiline, a man of noble extraction, and who had already been prætor, had been a competitor of Cicero’s for the consulship; the next year he again offered himself for the office, practising such excessive and open bribery, that Cicero published a new law against it, with the additional penalty of ten years’ exile; prohibiting likewise all shows of gladiators from being exhibited by a candidate within two years of the time of his suing for any magistracy, unless they were ordered by the will of a person deceased. Catiline, who knew this law to be aimed chiefly at him, formed a design to murder Cicero and some others of the chief men of the senate, on the day of election, which was fixed for the twentieth of October. But Cicero had information of his plans, and laid them before the senate, on which the election was deferred, that they might have time to deliberate on an affair of so much importance. The day following, when the senate met, he charged Catiline with having entertained this design, and Catiline’s behaviour had been so violent, that the senate passed the decree to which they had occasionally recourse in times of imminent danger from treason or sedition, “Let the consuls take care that the republic suffers no harm.” This decree invested the consuls with absolute power, and suspended all the ordinary forms of law, till the danger was over. On this Cicero doubled his guards, introduced some additional troops into the city, and when the elections came on, he wore a breastplate under his robe for his protection; by which precaution he prevented Catiline from executing his design of murdering him and his competitors for the consulship, of whom Decius Junius Silanus and Lucius Licinius Murena were elected

Catiline was rendered desperate by this his second defeat, and resolved without further delay to attempt the execution of all his schemes. His greatest hopes lay in Sylla’s veteran soldiers, whose cause he had always espoused. They were scattered about in the different districts and colonies of Italy; but he had actually enlisted a considerable body of them in Etruria, and formed them into a little arms under the command of Manlius, a centurion of considerable military experience, who was only waiting for his orders. He was joined in his conspiracy by several senators of profligate lives and desperate fortunes, of whom the chiefs were Publius Cornelius Lentulus, Caius Cethegus, Publius Autronius, Lucius Cassius Longinus, Marcus Porcius Lecca, Publius Sylla, Servilius Sylla, Quintus Curius, Lucius Vargunteius, Quintus Annius, and Lucius Bestia. These men resolved that a general insurrection should be raised throughout all Italy; that Catiline should put himself at the head of the troops in Etruria; that Rome should be set on fire in many places at once; and that a general massacre should be made of all the senate, and of all their enemies, of whom none were to

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