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We may see from this essay that Pompey was still regarded as the greatest and most influential man at Rome; that Catiline's character was so atrocious in the eyes of most, that his opposition was not to be feared; that Cicero's "newness" was a really formidable bar to his election, and that his chief support was to be looked for from the individuals and companies for whom he had acted as counsel, and who hoped to secure his services in the future.
"He does nothing but game; feast, intrigue, read Greek, and write verses." "You know nothing of Caesar. Though he rarely addresses the Senate, he is considered as the finest speaker there, after the Consul. His influence with the multitude is immense. He will serve his rivals in public life as he served me last night at Catiline's. We were playing at the twelve lines.
Here Jugurtha starved; here Catiline's adherents were strangled; and, methinks, there cannot be in the world another such an evil den, so haunted with black memories and indistinct surmises of guilt and suffering. In old Rome, I suppose, the citizens never spoke of this dungeon above their breath.
He had been an informer in the matter of Catiline's conspiracy, and he had attempted to implicate C. Julius Cæsar in it: which of the two parties caused him to be assassinated is doubtful. This affair of Vettius is spoken of by Cicero, Ad Attic. ii. 24, Dion Cassius, 38, c. 9, Appian, Civil Wars, ii. 12. Cicero was banished B.C. 58, and Cato was sent to Cyprus in the same year.
The result was that Catiline's candidature failed, and Cicero was elected with Gaius Antonius for his colleague. At length Cicero, seeing that the ferment was everywhere increasing to an extent with which the ordinary law could not cope, obtained from the senate the exceptional powers for dealing with a national emergency which they had constitutional authority to grant.
Catiline's conspiracy is an unhappy subject for a tragedy; it is too single, and gives no opportunity to the poet to excite any of the tender passions; the whole is one intended act of horror, Crebillon was sensible of this defect, and to create another interest, most absurdly made Catiline in love with Cicero's daughter, and her with him.
Upon the day he was born, the senate being engaged in a debate on Catiline's conspiracy, and Octavius, in consequence of his wife's being in childbirth, coming late into the house, it is a well-known fact, that Publius Nigidius, upon hearing the occasion of his coming so late, and the hour of his wife's delivery, declared that the world had got a master.
There were men amongst the younger nobles quite ready to risk their lives in the struggle for absolute power; and the mob was ready to follow whatever leader was bold enough to bid highest for their support. It is impossible here to do much more than glance at the well-known story of Catiline's conspiracy.
None, certainly; but it is a continued expression of the feeling that has prevailed since Catiline's time. In his own age Cicero and Sallust, who were opposed in all their political views, combined to speak ill of him. In the next, Virgil makes him as suffering his punishment in hell. In the next, Velleius Paterculus speaks of him as the conspirator whom Cicero had banished.
I need not describe his memorable career; his successive election to all the highest offices of state, his detection of Catiline's conspiracy, his opposition to turbulent and ambitious partisans, his alienations and friendships, his brilliant career as a statesman, his misfortunes and sorrows, his exile and recall, his splendid services to the state, his greatness and his defects, his virtues and weaknesses, his triumphs and martyrdom.
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