Catilina's riddle

Fresh rumours asserted that Lentulus and Cethegus and the rest were pla

At sundown Cicero was banished from his house on the Palatine for reasons that had nothing to do with the crisis. It was the night of the a

The Nones of December dawned bright and cold. A coterie of armed men gathered before the Temple of Concord. One by one the senators arrived, leaving their entourages behind in the milling throng while they mounted the stairs beneath the stern countenance of Jupiter and disappeared within the temple to decide the fate of the conspirators. Crassus was conspicuously absent, as were a great many senators of the populist party, but Caesar attended, making his way through the Forum with a large body of followers.

While the Senate met, the nervous crowd in the Forum awaited the outcome. Men speculated wildly about the debate being staged within, and mad rumours circulated — that Lentulus had escaped, that Cethegus had already been strangled in the night, that Crassus had committed suicide, that Catilina and a huge army were crossing the Milvian Bridge, that parts of the city were in revolt and had been set on fire, that Caesar had been attacked and killed inside the Temple of Concord. This last bit of gossip set off a small riot among Caesar's partisans, who began to storm the temple and were brought under control only when Caesar himself appeared on the steps to show himself alive and whole.

I found myself wishing that Rufus could have smuggled us inside, as he had done on Meto's birthday, so that we could hear the speeches for ourselves. Instead I learned of the details afterwards, largely from Rufus but also from reading the speeches themselves; for Cicero, with his mania for surveillance, who in his first speech against Catilina had proclaimed, 'Let every man's political views be written on his brow for all to see,' actually stationed an army of secretaries among the senators to record the entire debate, something that had never been done before. These secretaries had been trained by Tiro himself in the method called Tironian 'shorthand', by which whole words and phrases are recorded with a single stroke. Using this new invention, they were able to take down every word, and thus the sentiments of every senator were put on record in Cicero's files.

The consul-elect Silanus began the debate with a fiery condemnation of those who would have plunged Rome into the ruins of civil war; he conjured up images of children torn limb from limb before their horrified parents, of wives raped in front of their castrated husbands, of boys and girls brutally ravished, temples plundered, homes burned to the ground. No course would satisfy the gods, he argued, except that the prisoners should suffer 'the supreme penalty'.

Subsequent speakers agreed and seemed bent on outdoing one another with expressions of outrage, until the proposal was countered by Caesar, who pointed out that Roman law permits a convicted citizen to go into exile rather than face execution. He did not argue that the convicted men deserved to live, but rather that the law should be scrupulously adhered to, for the sake of tradition. 'Consider the precedent you establish, for all bad precedents originate from measures good in themselves. You would inflict an extraordinary penalty on guilty men who doubtless deserve it. But what happens when power passes into the hands of men less worthy than yourselves, and they wish to inflict death upon men who do not deserve it? They will point to your precedent and no one will be able to stop them.' Thus did Caesar, whom many thought to be co

Cicero spoke against this proposal, saying that the only safe period of imprisonment for such men would be imprisonment for life, for which there was no precedent at all, and that the laws that protect the lives of citizens no longer applied to the men in question, 'for a man who is a public enemy ca

Nevertheless, so persuasive was Caesar that Silanus himself equivocated, saying he had never meant to advocate death for the prisoners, for in the case of Roman senators such as Lentulus and Cethegus 'the supreme penalty' meant imprisonment. This was met with guffaws and cries of disdain from all sides.

More speeches followed, and it appeared that those present were deeply split between execution and banishment. Tiberius Nero drew cries of assent when he argued that no action as drastic as execution should be taken in the heat of the moment, and that to follow Caesar's course was best; nothing should be done without strictly legal trials, he said, and no clear judgments could be rendered until after Catilina had been either driven into exile for good or defeated in the field.

At this point Marcus Cato rose to speak. Though the transcripts do not record it, one can imagine a collective groan from the assembly. Marcus Cato was the self-styled conscience of the Senate, ceaselessly admonishing his fellows to uphold those stern moral principles he inherited from his famous great-grandfather.

'Many a time have I spoken before this body,' he began, 'and many a time have I reproached my fellow citizens for their spinelessness, their self-indulgence, their indolence and greed. By doing so I have made many enemies, but, as I have never excused myself for my own failings, I find no reason to excuse the failings of others. You know my sentiments. You have heard them many times before, and I see your eyes rolling up even now at the prospect of hearing them again. Men do not like being told that they have lost the virtues of their ancestors, especially when it is true. Our forefathers built this empire by hard work, just rule abroad, and integrity within this chamber. Today you pile up riches for yourselves while the state is bankrupt. Posts of honour that should be awarded for merit are sold to ambitious schemers. In your private lives you are slaves to pleasure, and here in the Senate you are mere tools for money and influence. The result? When an assault is made upon the Republic, there is no one here to defend it. Everyone stands around, trembling and confused, waiting for someone else to act!