NOTES ON THE CATILINE ORATIONS.

NOTES ON THE FIRST CATILINE ORATION.

will you

C. I. Quousque tandem abutere, &c., "How far, I pray, abuse our patience, Catiline? how long will that frenzy of yours continue to play the part it has played so long? what is to be the end of this parade of unbridled insolence?" Here "tandem" has the force of "I pray," used, as Quintilian observes, instandi causa; etiam = et jam = "still" (of continuance). Compare Georg. iii. 189,"invalidus etiamque tremens, etiam inscius ævi."

Nihilne te nocturnum præsidium Palatii, &c., "Is nothing the impression made upon you by the guards stationed night after night on the Palatine Hill, nothing the impression made on you by the sentinels posted up and down the city, nothing the consternation of the people, nothing the mustering of all good citizens (to defend the state), nothing this (sacred) and strongly fortified spot where the senate is held, nothing the countenances and the looks of these (senators before you) ?" Nihil begins every clause for the sake of marked emphasis, and in interrogative sentences the "ne" is appended to the most emphatic word on which the whole question is made to turn.

Senatus locus. According to Ramsay, the temple of Juppiter Stator, which stood near the sacra via on the northern slope of the Palatium. Cf. Plut. Cic. 16. For meetings of the senate the temples of the Forum and the Capitol were usually the only ones employed; but on this occasion the temple of Juppiter Stator seems to have been chosen, because the Mons Palatinus, on whose declivity it stood, was occupied by a military force (perhaps, also, because it was near Cicero's house, and he did not wish to run any needless risks). The senate could only hold its meetings in a templum, i.e. in some consecrated spot, the ordinary council-hall being the Curia Hostilia, on the north of the Comitium.

Fit-notat et designat. Observe the position of these verbs, first in the sentence, to give them special emphasis. "He actually becomes a sharer in our public deliberations; he is actually noting and marking out with his eyes each individual of our number for slaughter."

F

Satisfacere, "To be doing our duty to the State" (satisfying its claims on us).

Conferri, "To be brought upon you from all sides."

An vero, "Whilst in truth." The clause is co-ordinate with what follows, to bring out the contrast more clearly. Tiberius Gracchus was murdered in B.C. 133, not as a matter of fact by Publius Scipio Nasica himself, but in a riot of which he was the ringleader. C. Servilius Ahala was master of the horse in B.C. 440, when Cincinnatus was named dictator.

Privatus, "Holding no magisterial office."

Senatus consultum, namely, "Ne quid respublica detrimenti caperet." (See Introduction.)

C. II. Decrevit, B.C. 121. The text of this decree is in Cicero's Phil. viii. § 14, "Ut L. Opimius Consul rem publicam defenderet." Full powers were then conferred upon one Consul, contrary to usual custom, because the other Consul, L. Fabius Maximus, at this time was absent in Gaul.

Clarissimo patre, avo, majoribus, "Of a most illustrious father, grandfather, and ancestry." (The attribute being immediately before all the nouns, qualifies all; this is the general usage.) Č. Gracchus, grandfather by his mother's side, was the elder Africanus.

Simili senatus consulto. In B.c. 100, when Saturninus and his associates were not put to death by Marius, who had them shut up to secure a regular trial, when the mob broke in and murdered him. See Cicero, pro Rab. § 20, and Merivale's "Fall of the Roman Republic," 64.

Remorata est, &c., "Death and the penalty due to the State had not to wait a single day after it had (been decreed), had it, for L. Saturninus, the tribune of the people, and C. Servilius the prætor (to put it into execution) ?' Mark the force of num with an interrogative, where the answer is assumed to be negative.

At vero, "But we most assuredly on the contrary." (Mark the notion of opposition to something going before almost always implied in or expressed by at.)

Horum auctoritatis aciem, "The edge of the empowering act given to us by the senate.'

Inclusum, "Shut up on the tablet on which it is written-like a sword in a sheath" (tanquam in vagina reconditum).

Me non dissolutum videri, "(I wish) not to appear remiss (in my duty as Consul)." It has been observed that the infinitive by itself after verbs of wishing expresses the simple wish unmodified by any reflection, but that the accusative with the infinitive always denotes that that which is wished is wished as something apprehended and recognised.

Castra, at Fæsulæ, now Fiesole, under C. Manlius. (See Introduction.)

In Etruriæ faucibus, "In the mountain gorges of Etruria."

And even in the senate."

Credo, erit verendum mihi, ne, &c. "I believe, forsooth, that I

shall have to fear that all good citizens will assert, not that I have done this too late, but rather that some one will assert that I have acted with too much cruelty." Credo is here ironical. Cicero means to say, but it is more likely that all good citizens will consider the action too late, rather than any one should believe it too cruel. Quisquam here is not "any," but "a single individual."

C. III. Privata domus. That of Læca, from which Cicero obtained his private information concerning the conspiracy, through Fulvia and Curius.

Illustrantur, erumpunt, "Are made clear" (though formed in darkness, tenebris), burst forth (though confined within the walls of a house, parietebus).

Ante diem xii. Kal. Nov., "On the twelfth day before the Kalends of November," i.e. on 21st October. On the 20th of October, according to Anthon, Cicero gave notice to the senate of the existence of a conspiracy against the State. The consular election was to have been held the next day, the 21st, but the senate, in consequence of the impending dangers, put off the comitia, and resolved to meet on that day for the purpose of deliberating more fully on the subject, for otherwise they could not have done any business on a comitial day. On the 21st, therefore, Cicero, in a full house, called upon Catiline to clear himself from the charge alleged against him; whereupon the latter, without 'denying or excusing it, bluntly replied, "that there were two bodies in the republic," meaning the senate and people, "the one of them infirm with a weak head, the other firm without a head, and that this last had so well deserved of him that it should never want a head while he lived."

Sui conservandi causa, "For the sake of self-preservation." Sui is not a genitive plural, as it is sometimes considered, but, according to Madvig, a neuter singular of the adjective used collectively and as an abstract noun.

Num infitiari potes, "You cannot deny, can you?" Nihil agis, nihil moliris, &c. (See note on nihil, chap. i.) C. IV. Recognosce tandem mecum, "Review with me, pray you." Dico te priori nocte, "and I maintain that at the beginning of that night" (noctem illam superiorem above) "you came into the street of the sickle-makers." (Observe the special and emphatic force of dico, as standing first in the sentence.)

Sanctissimo gravissimoque consilio, "Most sacred and most grave council." Consilium has the same root, sel or sol, as solium, consul, identical with sed in sedeo (as d and are interchangeable consonants, as in dákov and lacryma), but concilium is from calare.

Et quos ferro trucidari, &c., “And the men who ought to be slaughtered like cattle with the butcher's steel, these I do not even wound with my words," as Cicero did not even name them. Mark the force of trucidari, from taurum cædere (to cut down like an ox).

Descripsisti, "You marked off, or wrote down."

Duo equites, i.e. C. Cornelius and L. Vargunteius, according to Sallust.

Id temporis, "At that special point of time." (The partitive and special genitive; so we have quid detrimenti, quid consilii.)

Reperti sunt qui liberarent, and "were found for the purpose of relieving you of the anxiety of them." Observe the force of qui with the subjunctive mood, and of ista, and its reference to the second person.

C. V. Educ tecum etiam omnes tuos, si minus, quam plurimos, &c. "Lead out with you even the whole of your followers, and, if not the whole, as many as possible, (so) purge this city, (so) you will set me free from a mighty apprehension, provided only the interval of a wall is interposed between myself and yourself."

Per me tibi obstiti, "I withstood you by my own personal efforts alone," i.e. I did not call to my aid any public measures or means to oppose you (so long as you limited your attack to myself).

Non feram, non patiar, non sinam, "I will not bear it, I will not suffer it, I will not permit it."

66

Nunc jam, "Even now.' (When two particles of time come together, the first is used for emphasis; so jam tunc, even then.") Hujus imperii, "The sovereign power" (with which I am armed). That is, the power of the sword. Compare lower down " me imperante." Faciebasfacere volebas.

C. VI. Conjurationem, “Band of conspirators." (The abstract for the concrete.)

Quæ nota-non inusta, "What brand has not been burnt in upon (your character).'

Facem prætuliste, &c., "Lighted the way to sensual lust" (with the additional sense of kindling and inflaming the passions). Cumulasti, for cumulavisti, "You have crowned ?"

Domesticam tuam difficultatem, "Your private embarrassments." Proximis Idibus senties. According to Wilkins, Cicero here means to say, that after his undertaking has once been considered at last a failure on the next Ides, all sums that he had borrowed would certainly be called in. If this happens, Catiline must feel on the Ides that the complete forfeiture of his mortgage property will follow unavoidably on the following Kalends, the usual day of payment.

Mentem, "On reflection." (So Virgil of Dido's death, "Paulum lacrimis et mente morata." En. iv. 649.)

Petitiones, "Attacks" (properly of sword thrusts, or cuts of the gladiator).

Corpore, "By the movement of the body" (not by any defensive armour).

C. VII. Misericordia, quæ tibi nulla debetur, "Moved with a feeling of pity, of which not a single portion is justly due to 'yourself.'"

Ex hac tanta frequentia, "Out of this so great and so full an assemblage" (referring to the full numbers of the senate, drawn together on this momentous crisis).

Subsellia, "The lower benches" (where the senators sat, as opposed to the elevated seat of the consul in his curule chair).

Quæstiones, "Criminal trials."

Quod a tuo scelere abhorreat, "That is free from your guilty participation (in which you did not bear a part)."

C. VIII. Apud M'. Lepidum, "At the house of Manius Lepidus." (Observe Manius, not Marcus, Lepidus, who held the consulship with Volcatius Tullus as a colleague.)

Qui essem, 66

Since I was," (for quippi qui).

Vindicandum, "Punishing" (properly vindicating the law).

Si hanc vocem exspectas, "If it is the word (of exile) you are now waiting for."

A carcere, (custodia).

"The public prison," as opposed to private custody

C. IX. In "tu ut unquam te corrigas" and the adjoining sentences, mark the emphatic force given to the pronoun by its first place in the sentence.

Quamquam quid loquor, "And yet why do I speak?" (Compare Virgil, Eneid v. 194: "Quamquam, O, si superent." In Greek we have kairo precisely in this sense.)

Duint-archaic for dent.

Ut temporibus reipublicæ concedas, "That you can make any concessions to the interests of the State."

Molem istius invidiæ, "The weight of that ill-will which you will bring upon me."

Servire meæ laudi et gloriæ, "Will minister to my reputation and to my glory."

Cum importuna sceleratorum manu, "With your desperate band of criminals." Importunus is here used in its first sense of harbourless, without any place of safety to turn to, and so desperate. Compare naufragus, however, in chap. xii.

Impio latrocinio, "In your unnatural deeds of robbery," as being directed against your country, and so unnatural. Compare "impiam dexteram" lower down.

C. X. Bellum nefarium, "A war that is not merely a crime in the eyes of men, but a sin in the sight of Heaven."

Conflatam (a metaphor from the melting of metals), "Smelted together."

Non modo-ne quidem (Cicero often omits a second non, preceding ne quidem), "Not only not, but not even.'

Ad hujus vitæ studium meditati sunt, &c., "It was for the zealous pursuit of such an abandoned life as this that those hardships, which are now extolled, were practised." Note here the passive sense of the deponent verb (meditor) and also its sense of practise, like Greek μελετάω.

Habes, ubi ostentes, "You have an opportunity to parade" (ostento is the frequentative form of ostendo).

C. XI. Nunc, ut a me detester ac deprecer" Now, conscript fathers, that I may, in the most solemn manner, remove from myself a certain complaint of my country by adjuration and