THE FIRST ORATION AGAINST

CATILINE.

DELIVERED BEFORE THE SENATE, Nov. 8, 63 B.c.

ARGUMENT.

This oration does not fall into the regular subdivisions noted in the general Introduction (92) and in the introduction to the Manilian law, p. 167. Cicero's vehemence and excitement are too great to admit of a formal exordium or introduction. He plunges at once into the statement of the case (propositio, Chs. I.-IV.); this is followed by an appeal to Catiline to leave the city (hortatio, Chs. v.-x.); and finally we have the peroratio, in which the consul seeks to defend his conduct as regards Catiline, and calls upon Jupiter to defend the state.

As soon

Catiline, what limit is there to your boldness! You know that your schemes are known, and yet you dare to enter the senate. You deserve death, and the precedents of our ancestors demand this, but you have been spared, and the senate's decree has gone unheeded for.twenty days. I confess to remissness, and you have presumed on my leniency, and are even now collecting troops in Etruria. But your time will come. as all are convinced of your guilt, you will be put to death, and meanwhile you shall be watched. You are hemmed in on every side, and your designs are all known to me. I told the senate that Manlius would rise in arms on the 27th of October, and I was not mistaken, was I? I'foretold and prevented the massacre which you had planned for the 28th of October, and the attack on Praeneste on the 1st of November. I know, too, about your meeting at Laeca's house night before last, who was there, and what you planned. Some of your confederates, who were present, are here before me. Two of them came to my house this morning to murder me, but I was prepared for them, and shut them out.

PAGE 43. 1. Ch. I. Sec. 1. tandem: I pray, often used in impatient or indignant questions.-abutere: note the length of the penult. Where must it be made? patientia: for case, see A. 249; B. 218, 1; G. 407; H. 477, I.; (421, I.). Trans., To what point, pray, Catiline, will you try our forbearance.

2. etiam: still; connect with quam diu. Quem ad finem: to what limit.

3. Nihilne, etc.: note the emphatic repetition of nihil in the successive clauses. (Anaphora, see 3, 20, and note.) The interrogative particle ne is added as usual to the most emphatic word on which the whole question hinges. For cons. of nihil, see A. 238, b; B. 176, 3; G. 338; H. 416, 2; (378, 2). 4. praesidium Palati: in time of danger the Palatine hill was always guarded as one of the strongest and most important military points in the city. See (94), (95), and Ill. page 43. Cicero had called the meeting there, in the temple of Jupiter Stator, because it was near to his house, and because of its security.

PAGE 44. 1. timor: see Syn. 18. bonorum: used in a political sense of the senatorial party or optimates, as contrasted with the party of the people, the plebeians or populares.

2. locus: the temple of Jupiter Stator, believed to have stood on the northern slope of the Palatine, near the Sacra Via (105, 16). The regular meeting-place for the senate was the Curia (105, 2), but the temples about the Forum were often so used (35). ora voltusque: the first word has reference to the face, the second to the expression of the face; we may therefore translate, the expression of the faces. The use of two nouns connected by and instead of a noun with a genitive or a noun with an adjective is called hendiadys. See also Syn. 44.

3. Patere... Constrictam: note the emphatic position. -non: for nonne. The interrogative particle -ne is often omitted in rapid and lively questions.

4. horum: the senators before him. This word was probably accompanied by a gesture.

5. proxima: referring to the night of Nov. 7, when the attempt on Cicero's life was made. superiore: the night of Nov. 6, when the meeting was held at Laeca's house.

6. egeris... fueris, etc.: subjv. in ind. questions depending upon ignorare.

9. Sec. 2. Immo vero: used to correct or add something to a previous statement. Lives, did I say? Nay, he actually comes

into the senate.

11. unum quemque nostrum: stronger than omnes nos, because it individualizes. Nostrum is regular as partitive genitive, nostri being objective.

12. fortes of course ironical. — satis facere. videmur, si... vitemus: a simple condition in ind. disc., videmur having the force of we seem to ourselves, we believe, we think. What would the condition be in the direct form?

...

iussu con

14. Ad mortem, . . . in te: note the emphasis. sulis by the Valerian, Porcian, and Sempronian laws every citizen had the right of appeal to the people against the decision of any magistrate (62), but by the consultum ultimum (34) passed on the 22d of October, Cicero claimed the right to put citizens to death on his own authority.

=

H. 583;

15. oportebat with iam pridem ought to have been long ago. The expression is equal to the apodosis of a condition contrary to fact in past time. For the indic. oportebat instead of the subjv., see A. 308, c; B. 304, 3; G. 597, R. 3, a; (511, 1, N. 3). For the imperfect with the force of the pluperfect, see A. 277, b; B. 260, 4; G. 234; H. 535, 1; (469, 2). [omnes iam diu]: words in brackets are of doubtful manuscript authority, and may generally be omitted.

17. Sec. 3. An vero: see on 26, 12. As the sentence is expressed, the verbs interfecit and perferemus are coördinate. In translation, subordinate the first clause by introducing it with while. P. Scipio . . . Ti. Gracchum: Tiberius Gracchus, tribune of the people in 133 B.C., aroused the hatred of the aristocracy by his Agrarian laws in the interest of the poor. On the day of the election of tribunes for the next year, he was

killed, with three hundred of his followers, by a mob of senators led by P. Scipio Nasica. Gracchus was a noble-spirited patriot, and his murder made Scipio so unpopular that he was obliged to leave the city, and died in exile. Cicero does violence to the memory of Ti. Gracchus in comparing him with Catiline, as he does below in speaking with approval of the murder of C. Gracchus, the brother of Tiberius, who lost his life in fighting for the same noble cause. Cicero's language about the Gracchi varies with what he has in view. Sometimes he praises them, but here he needed a precedent for the violence with which he threatened Catiline, and he knew that his senatorial audience would not object to having their ancestral enemies, the Gracchi, placed in an odious light. - pontifex maximus: see (76). This was not strictly a political office, so Scipio was still technically a privatus.

18. mediocriter . . . privatus: these words are emphatic, and stand in rhetorical contrast to orbem terrae and consules, the emphatic words of the next clause.

PAGE 45. 3. illa: that case, plural for singular. - praetereo, rhetorical praeteritio, see on 15, 10. quod: the fact that, introducing a substantive clause in apposition with illa. A. 333, N.; B. 299, 1, a; G. 525, 2; H. 588, 3; (540, IV. N.). 4. Ahala, etc.: see Vocab.

6. Fuit, fuit: emphatic repetition (anaphora). The tense is also emphatic, indicating that what was is no longer true.

12. senatus consultum: i.e. the decree referred to below, 46, 4, conferring dictatorial power upon the consul. See (34). 13. rei publicae: dat. with deest.

14. consilium, auctoritas: i.e. the senate had given the state the benefit of its deliberation (consilium) and its authority (auctoritas); all that is lacking is the executive power lodged in the consuls.

16. Ch. II. Sec. 4. ut. . . . videret: an obj. cl. of purpose after decrevit. ne... caperet is another clause of the same

sort depending on videret.

18. interfectus est, occisus est: note the emphatic position

of the verbs. The action of the past is contrasted with the inaction of the present.

19. C. Gracchus: in 121 B.C. Caius Gracchus had carried and was attempting to enforce a series of measures still more revolutionary and hostile to the aristocracy than those of his brother. The senate passed the consultum ultimum, whereupon Opimius, the consul, with an armed force, attacked Gracchus and killed him and M. Fulvius Flaccus, his chief supporter, and hundreds of others. See also note above, 44, 17, and the vocabulary. clarissimo patre: Ti. Sempronius Gracchus was censor, twice consul, and twice enjoyed a triumph.

20. avo: the mother of the Gracchi, the famous Cornelia, was the daughter of P. Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Hannibal.

22. num

answer.

introducing a question, expecting a negative unum diem: acc. of time.

'It didn't, did it?'

23. Saturninum, etc.: L. Saturninus and C. Servilius Glaucia were unworthy imitators of the Gracchi. They were closely allied with Marius and the popular party, and were the greatest demagogues of their day. In 100 B.C., when Saturninus was tribune and Glaucia praetor, the latter became candidate for the consulship. As he seemed likely to be defeated by C. Memmius, Saturninus and Glaucia hired some ruffians who murdered Memmius openly in the comitia. The senate thereupon ordered the consuls to put them down. Marius, the consul, was unwilling to proceed against them, but had no alternative. They surrendered to Marius, who shut them up for safe keeping in the senate house, and did all he could to save their lives; but an infuriated mob tore the tiles from the roof and stoned them to death. It will be noted that this illustration of consular authority lacks force, because the men were not killed by the consul, but in spite of him.

PAGE 46. 1. remorata est: lit. Did death, etc., keep them waiting a single day after. The thought is that they were killed on the same day that the decree of the senate was passed.

2. At the strongest adversative conjunctive, which adds to