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HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

GIFT OF

GEORGE ARTHUR PLIMPTON
JANUARY 25, 1924

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by

J. H. AND W. F. ALLEN AND J. B. GREENOUGH,

in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

1

NOTE.

THIS edition follows strictly the text of the fourth edition of DIETSCH, with a few slight changes to secure a consistent orthography. It is one of a series of classics prepared under the same joint editorship with the select Orations of Cicero, published in June, 1873.

CAMBRIDGE, January 1, 1874.

INTRODUCTION.

LUCIUS SERGIUS CATILINA was an old soldier and partisan of Sulla, a man of profligate character, broken fortunes, and headstrong ambition. About twelve years after Sulla's death, he formed a scheme to better his estate by political adventure. His confederates were, some of them, men of good family and high official standing; the larger number, probably, needy and reckless fortune-hunters. His plan was to get himself into power in the ordinary way of popular elections; then, by the spoils and chances of office, to secure his own predominance, and reward the service of his adherents. Probably his plans did not differ much from those of most political soldiers of fortune. They seem to have been ripened as early as B. c. 66. Two years later, he was defeated in a close race for the consulship by Cicero and Caius Antonius. Renewing his attempt at the next elections, he was again defeated, and, when driven from the city by the invective of Cicero, he raised the standard of open insurrection. His confederates in the city were seized and put to death, and in the following January, a month later, he was beaten in battle, and his armed force completely annihilated.

The Conspiracy of Catiline, so called, was the principal political event in Rome from the dictatorship of Sulla down to that of Julius Cæsar; and, in point of time, was almost exactly half way between the two. It was not what the name generally means-a conspiracy to overthrow the existing government. It was a scheme, on the part of a few needy and desperate politicians, to get themselves elected

in regular form, and then to carry on the government to their own advantage. Apart from the character of the men who engaged in it, it does not seem to have been any more criminal in its origin or plans than any "ring" or cabal by which a personal interest seeks its ends through the forms of constitutional election. Only when, after three years' attempt, it was finally defeated at the polls, and appealed to armed insurrection, did it take the shape of treason. And even then it kept the formalities of civil and military authority, and rejected the help of slaves; claiming that its real object was to rid the state of an oppressive and selfish oligarchy. That its real aim was to destroy the state- which Cicero asserts was, at any rate, so well disguised, that the party which succeeded in overcoming it fell into odium as enemies of the people, and found their own ruin in its defeat.

These circumstances have made the true character and aims of the conspiracy one of the riddles of Roman politics. Cicero, in a well-known passage (Cat. II.), ranges the conspirators in five "dangerous classes," of which the most respectable were men of large estates heavily mortgaged, whose debts made them ready to welcome any sort of change. But they, as he shows, could have no real interest in a revolution. And it may be safe, perhaps, along with many critics, to dismiss the stories of bloody rites, criminal oaths, and desperate designs of massacre and conflagration, as the tales of frightened fancy and political hate. But of the reckless and criminal character of its leaders, and the mischief they would have done if they had got into office, there seems no reason for doubt. As candidate, Cicero had beaten them fairly in a hard-fought battle at the polls. As consul, he had worked, actively and effectually, to block their further political game. When they were finally defeated, in the fall elections of his consular year, and lost heart to try again, he was vigilant, shrewd, intrepid, and successful, in tracking their schemes of open violence, and forcing the development of their plot beyond the walls.

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