the chief characters are drawn. Sempronia and Aurelia Orestilla, Catiline, Lentulus, Cethegus, Curius, and Petreius are principally from his pages, although hints from other quarters are worked in. Many of the minor characters are not mentioned in any other account than the Catilina.

Cicero. To fill in the outline furnished by Sallust, Jonson made heavy drafts on Cicero. However, these are generally in the dialogue, which I shall consider later. Practically the only part of the action taken from Cicero is the circumstantial account of the meeting of the senate (in act 5) at which the conspirators were convicted, which is from the third Catilinarian. However, the character of Cicero is due almost entirely to his self-revelations in his speeches, and the portrait of Catiline receives several effective touches from his hand.

Plutarch, etc. The contribution of other authorities to the plot proper is, on the whole, negligible. Dio Cassius gives a description of prodigies that may not be imitated 7 in Act I. Plutarch adds touches to the characters of Catiline and Lentulus, supplies the portrait of Antonius, and furnishes the basis for the letter-incident in Act 5, and for Cicero's personally leading the conspirators to execution. From Suetonius is the mention of the libel against Cæsar in Act 5, and from him the character of Cæsar seems to be principally drawn. However, the sum of these is but a small portion of the whole.

2. Sources of the Dialogue

Sallust. Sallust furnishes to the dialogue four of the five long connected speeches in Catiline: Catiline's address to the conspirators in Act I (Cat. 20), Catiline's speech to his soldiers in Act 5 (Cat. 58), and the speeches of Cæsar and Cato in the senate on the punishment of the

conspirators in Act 5 (Cat. 51 and 52). A number of shorter quotations also occur: Act 1: 165–169, 179–181, 428-430, 441-449, 463-465; Act 2: 34-56 (the description of Sempronia), 66–68, 310–312; Act 3: 534-536; Act 4: 516–518, 558–563, 612, 614–616, 640–643, 777, 783-792, 798.

Cicero. One long speech is from Cicero-the oration against Catiline before the senate, in Act 4, taken from the first Catilinarian. Besides this, the following lines are either quoted from Cicero, or suggested by him:

From 1 Cat.-3. 815-827; 4. 653-655

4 Cat.-3. 264; 5. 424-432; 437-438; 439446; 499-516

Pro Mur.-3. 21-24; 219–222; 4. 151-155

Lucan and others. Jonson's borrowings from other sources are generally for 'atmosphere.' In describing the horrors, for instance, of Sulla's sway, which Catiline and his followers hope to see repeated, he goes to Lucan's Pharsalia, where a vivid picture of civil strife is ready at hand, and incorporates many of its details in the account of the meeting of the conspirators in Act 1. When Fulvia acquaints Cicero with the plot, in Act 3, Lucan supplies many of Cicero's exclamations of horror. He also furnishes part of Catiline's speech in the senate in Act 4, and figures for the description of Catiline's death in Act 5. Seneca furnishes several hints for the monologue of Sulla's ghost in the first act. Single quotations even appear from Petronius, whose phrase 'ingeniosa gula' is caught up in 1. 391 as witty gluttony. Even so little known an author as

Claudian1 seems to have furnished more than a hint for the vigorous lines on the giants' war in 5. 677 ff. Reminiscences of Horace occur, such as in 1. 126 and 4. 30-33. A phrase, 'Kpάtel, μéluσe', is taken from Plutarch's Cato Minor (5. 578); Florus' Epitome furnishes 3. 285-288 and 5. 688-691; and Quintus Cicero is quoted in 4. 122–126. Instances might be multiplied, but full references are given in the Notes.

3. Sources of the Choruses

Chorus I owes its flavor to the incorporation in it of some eight quotations from the Satiricon of Petronius. While the chorus is by no means entirely a translation, the parts not from Petronius are mainly but amplifications of his thought. Chorus 2 is largely Jonson's own, save for one hint from Horace; Chorus 3 is also practically original. Chorus 4 contains only one direct quotation, but its gist is plainly taken from Sallust, with possibly some aid from Cicero's Pro Murena.

The treatment I have here given the sources has been brief, because I shall have more to say about them in the next section and in one taking up Jonson as atranslator.

4. Jonson's Use of Sources

The borrowings in Catiline are sometimes rather intangible. Scarcely more than a fourth of the play is actual translation, and yet scarcely more than a fourth is original. This is due to Jonson's method. Take, for instance, the first meeting of the senate in Act 5. Every incident is reproduced from Cicero's own account in 4 Cat., but there is practically no out-and-out quotation. Throughout, Jonson treats Sallust much as a modern playwright would a novel he was dramatizing—a historical

1 Claudian was more widely known in Jonson's day, however, than now.

novel, let us say. That is, he follows the outlines of the story pretty closely, taking dialogue where it is given, and where is it not, going to other sources, contemporary preferably, to supply it. If he finds nothing definite there, he at least has learned enough to understand how his characters might speak. So in Catiline Sallust furnishes most of the plot, many of the character-studies, and a fair share of the speeches; Cicero supplies much of the dialogue directly, especially as a great part of his speeches in the play consists of mosaics from his works; and the dialogue which is not directly furnished by Sallust, Cicero, or the minor sources, is almost always developed from them. The striking exception is the second act. For this Jonson had nothing but a few hints as to the character of Sempronia, and a bit from Ovid, and out of this scant stuff he wove one of the most sparkling of all his comic scenes. But this is unusual. Jonson's aim is not to be original. He believes in sticking to his book, and as a result, although he gains in mechanical realism, he loses in dynamism. By reason of Jonson's strict attention to sources, Catiline is a thoroughly Roman drama, far more so than Julius Cæsar: but who would ever consider comparing the two? Despite Jonson's real power, the weight of pedanticism ties him down, and Catiline can never be said to soar.

Jonson's attempts to be literally faithful to his authorities sometimes lead him astray. I shall cite a few examples. In Act 1, following the appearance of the ghost, and in direct accord with the atmosphere it has created, Catiline, in his monologue, seems just deciding to plot against his country. The phrase, It is decree'd, would indicate that a mental struggle, with the resolve to revolt as its culmination, has just ended. However, a few lines later, when the conspirators meet, Jonson has his eye upon Sallust so closely that he forgets this phrase,

and represents, with Sallust, the plot as already well advanced. Again, Jonson for his own purposes desires to maintain a fictitious unity of time. But he forgets this also, when (again following Sallust) he calls upon Syllanus as Consul next design'd, in Act 5, to give his judgment on the conspirators, notwithstanding that (as it seems to the reader) Cicero has just been elected to the consulship.1 Again, he translates a line from Cicero in Act 4 to make Gambinius Cimber the enginer of all; but in his own account Cimber has been merely a figure-head. In an endeavor to reconcile Plutarch's and Sallust's accounts of the attempts to murder Cicero, the former crediting the whole to Cethegus, he uses them both. The same sort of thing occurs in Act 3 and Act 4, Catiline threatening (in both places) to quench opposition to him with fire and ruin; in the first instance to Cato before the delivery of the first Catilinarian, in the second instance to Cæsar in answer to it. This is because Cicero in Pro Murena 25 and Sallust in Cat. 31 give different accounts. More instances of the sort might be adduced.

5. Historical Accuracy of Catiline

A strange anomaly in the case of Catiline is that, closely as it follows sources, it is not in the main true to history. This inaccuracy, however, is no fault of Jonson's. He lived in an uncritical age. Sallust's account was undoubtedly considered beyond reproach then, especially as Plutarch, Dio Cassius, Appian, Florus, and the other authorities agreed so substantially with it. But to us of today that very agreement is suspicious. As Merimée 2 points out, the accounts are so painstakingly alike that

1 But see Buland, Presentation of Time in the Elizabethan Drama, chap. 1, Double Time. At best the time-problem is here handled but poorly by Jonson, however.

2 Études sur l'Histoire Romaine.