Political Speeches (Oxford World's Classics)

by Cicero

  This war, citizens, relates to Asia, and to kings. It therefore calls not only for the unique military ability that Gnaeus Pompeius possesses, but also for many other fine moral qualities. It is not easy for a Roman commander to pass through Asia, Cilicia, Syria, and the kingdoms of the interior, and think only of the enemy and of honour. Then again, there may be some commanders who have feelings of decency and self-control and are restrained in their behaviour; but because so many of the rest are utterly rapacious, no one actually believes that the decent ones exist.

  [65] It is impossible to exaggerate, citizens, the degree to which we are detested by foreign peoples, because of the greed and corruption of the men we have sent out to govern them in recent years.* In all those lands, do you think there is any shrine that our magistrates have treated as sacred, any state they have treated as inviolable, or any private house they have treated as closed and barred to them? On the contrary, they actually go searching for rich and flourishing cities that they can find an excuse for declaring war on: that gives them their opportunity of plundering them. [66] I would gladly discuss this face to face with the eminent and illustrious Quintus Catulus and Quintus Hortensius: they know well the wounds that have been inflicted on our allies, they can see the disasters that have befallen them, they can hear their lamentations.* When you send out armies, do you think it is to defend your allies from the enemy, or to use the enemy as an excuse for attacking your friends and allies? Is there any state in Asia that is capable of restraining the spirit and determination of a single military tribune, let alone of a legate or a commander?

  So even if you have a commander who seems capable of defeating the armies of kings in a pitched battle, still, unless he is also capable of keeping his hands, his eyes, and his thoughts off the allies’ property, their wives and children, the art works of their shrines and cities, and the royal gold and treasure, he will be unfit to be sent to a war in Asia, and against kings. [67] Do you imagine that there is any state at peace with Rome that remains rich? Do our opponents consider any state that remains rich to be at peace with Rome? Citizens, the coastal districts asked for Gnaeus Pompeius not just because of his military reputation, but because of his self-restraint. For they saw that all but a few governors every year were enriching themselves at public expense, and that all we seemed to be doing with our so-called fleets was incurring more and more losses and so adding to our disgrace. I can only conclude, then, that those who object to everything being put in the hands of one man are unaware of the avarice of those who assume provincial commands, the money they spend to acquire them, and the deals they do to be assigned them—as if we did not see that Gnaeus Pompeius is ‘great’* not only because of his own virtues, but because of others’ vices! [68] So do not hesitate to entrust the supreme command to this one man, the only man in many years that our allies, when he arrives at their cities with his army, are happy to receive.

  But if you think that my proposal, citizens, needs to be backed up by men of authority, you will see that it is being supported by someone who has considerable expertise in all types of warfare as well as in important matters of state, Publius Servilius:* his achievements on land and sea are so outstanding that, when you are considering questions of war, you ought to pay more heed to him than to anyone else. It also has the support of Gaius Curio,* on whom you have conferred exceptional honours, a man of the greatest achievements, and of exceptional talent and wisdom. It has the support of Gnaeus Lentulus,* in whom you will all recognize exceptional intelligence and exceptional decorum, in keeping with the highest honours that you have conferred upon him. And it has the support of Gaius Cassius,* a man of unparalleled integrity, uprightness, and resolution. See, then, how the authority of these men allows me to answer the arguments of those who oppose me!

  [69] Since that is how things stand, Gaius Manilius, I would first like to applaud and strongly support your law, your intention, and your proposal; and then I would like to urge you, since you have the authority of the Roman people behind you, to stand by that proposal, and not be deterred by violence or threats from any quarter. In the first place, I am sure you possess the required courage and determination. Secondly, when we see such a large and enthusiastic crowd assembled here for a second time to appoint the same man as before, how can we be in any doubt about either what is proposed or our ability to see it through?

  For my own part, whatever energy, wisdom, industry, and talent I may possess, whatever influence I have by virtue of the praetorship which the Roman people have bestowed upon me, and whatever I can accomplish by means of authority, loyalty, and resolution, all this I pledge and devote to you and to the Roman people, for the purpose of carrying this proposal through. [70] And I call all the gods to witness—especially those who preside over this hallowed spot, who can see right into the minds of public figures—that I am not supporting this proposal because anyone has asked me to, or because I suppose that by doing so I would gain the favour of Gnaeus Pompeius, or because I am looking to use any great man’s position to gain for myself protection from attack or help in attaining office.* After all, any attack will easily be repelled (insofar as a mere human may guarantee it) by the protection of innocence, and as for office, that will come to me, if you wish it so, not from any individual, or as a result of speeches given here, but from my own hard work in the career I have been following.*

  [71] So whatever burden I have taken on with regard to this issue, citizens, I declare that I have done it entirely for the sake of the national interest. Indeed, far from seeming to have done it in order to win popularity, I am aware that it has actually made me quite a few enemies, both open and undeclared; and I could well have done without this, although it would not have been in your interest for me not to have acted as I have done. But the conclusion I came to, citizens, was that since I was holding this high office* which you were kind enough to bestow upon me, I had a duty to put your wishes, the dignity of Rome, and the security of our provinces and allies before considerations of my own private interest.

  IN CATILINAM (‘AGAINST CATILINE’)

  In 64 BC Cicero achieved his life’s ambition and was elected consul, together with Gaius Antonius Hybrida. Their year of office, 63, turned out to be one of the more eventful years of the late republic: an attempted coup d’état, the Catilinarian conspiracy, took place. The leader and figurehead of this was Lucius Sergius Catilina (‘Catiline’ in English), a patrician with an unsavoury past who had finally despaired of being elected consul, and had decided instead to seize power—a consulship, rather than a dictatorship or worse—by unconstitutional means. A rising of Catiline’s followers in Rome was nipped in the bud by Cicero; a related rising in Etruria, led by Catiline, was put down by an army under the command of Antonius. Cicero was more alive than his fellow senators to the very real threat which Catiline presented: the senators were more inclined to believe a patrician ex-praetor than a consular new man, and would take no action against Catiline without proof of his guilt. But Cicero provided that proof: he exposed the conspiracy, won over public opinion (thereby saving potentially thousands of lives), and then suppressed the rising in the city by the controversial execution of five ringleaders who had admitted their guilt before the senate—but had not been formally tried. In a series of speeches, In Catilinam (‘Against Catiline’) or, as they are more familiarly known, the Catilinarians, he provoked Catiline into open revolt, informed the senate and people of important developments, and debated the fate of those arrested. The careful but decisive manner in which he dealt with the crisis and removed the threat ensured that there were no adverse long-term consequences for Rome. The consequences for himself, however, were disastrous: in 58 he was exiled by his enemy Publius Clodius Pulcher for what he regarded, with justification, as his greatest public achievement.

  The Catilinarian conspiracy was a serious, if short-lived, emergency in the final decades of the republic. Cicero’s four Catilinarians, together with Sallust’s Catiline, a historical account of the
conspiracy written two decades later (c. 42 BC), make this the most fully attested event in Roman history. It was also the central event in Cicero’s life: many of his subsequent public utterances were made, implicitly or very often explicitly, with reference to the conspiracy and the actions which he took at that time. Moreover, the Catilinarians are the most famous, most exciting, and most read of Cicero’s speeches—thrilling from beginning to end, and compelling examples of the use of oratory in a fast-developing political crisis.

  Catiline’s family was of no political importance—it had produced no consul for more than 300 years—and his patrician birth, though it gave him considerable social distinction, did not lead automatically to high office. His career began with military service under Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo in the Social War, and under Sulla in c. 82–80. During the latter period he made use of the opportunities presented by the civil war and by Sulla’s proscriptions to amass vast wealth: in the competitive world of the post-Sullan era, money was essential if one was to succeed in politics—and also, in Catiline’s case, avoid conviction in the courts. The sources claim that he murdered various members of his family at this time (his brother, his wife’s brother, and his sister’s husband) or at other times (his wife and son), but these allegations are best explained as arising from the character-assassination to which he was subjected in the 60s (the best-attested allegation, the murder of his wife’s brother Marcus Marius Gratidianus, dissolves upon close inspection; cf. B. A. Marshall, CQ, NS 35 (1985), 124–33). Nevertheless, he appears to have committed a number of murders outside his own family; we have the names of four alleged victims. After a further period of military service (it is not known where) in the early 70s, he is next heard of in 73, when he was prosecuted for adultery with a Vestal virgin, Fabia, a half-sister (or cousin) of Cicero’s wife Terentia. However, various consulars, including the highly respected Quintus Lutatius Catulus (the consul of 78), submitted testimonials in his favour, and the charge was withdrawn.

  In 68 he was praetor, and in 67–66 he served as governor of Africa. During his governorship, embassies came to Rome to protest against his rapacity, and in the summer of 65 a charge of extortion was brought against him. Cicero, not yet his enemy, considered defending him (Att. 1.2.1; cf. Cael. 14), despite believing him to be guilty (Att. 1.1.1): clearly Catiline was still respectable (and had done nothing to injure Cicero’s family in the affair over Fabia). When the case came to trial, he was supported by the consul Lucius Manlius Torquatus and was acquitted—allegedly after collusion with the prosecutor Publius Claudius Pulcher (the future Clodius).

  The trial, however, had delayed his plans to stand for the consulship. He first attempted to stand in 66 when he returned from Africa and found that the consulships of 65 had unexpectedly become vacant. Publius Cornelius Sulla and Publius Autronius Paetus had been elected for 65, but had then been convicted of electoral malpractice and deprived of their prospective consulships. Catiline therefore applied to stand in the supplementary election that would be held to fill the vacancies: if he were elected, this would neatly allow him to escape his likely prosecution for extortion (since magistrates could not be prosecuted while holding a senior public office). However, the consul presiding over the supplementary election, Lucius Volcacius Tullus, refused to accept his candidature on the grounds that he had not submitted his nomination within the specified period (meaning, presumably, that he had not been a candidate in the original election). The next year, 65, was (again, presumably) the year in which Catiline had originally intended to stand; but at that point his extortion trial was under way, and so he had to defer his candidature until 64.

  The political situation at the end of 66 and beginning of 65 was volatile. There was a rumour that Sulla and Autronius were planning to recover their forfeited consulships by violence: they may have demonstrated against the incoming consuls, Lucius Manlius Torquatus and Lucius Aurelius Cotta, on I January 65. Secondly, there were popular disturbances over the impending trial of Gaius Manilius, the tribune of 66 who had proposed the lex Manilia putting Pompey in command of the war against Mithridates. Cicero, as praetor in charge of the extortion court in 66, had scheduled the trial for the last day of the year, but had then been forced to postpone it until 65; when it finally took place, the senate asked the consuls to attend and keep order. What role Catiline may have played in these events is unclear. He is said to have appeared in the forum, armed, on the last day of 66, and also to have put off his plans until 5 February 65; these incidents could conveniently be explained as being connected with the deferred trial of Manilius (if this is correct, Catiline is more likely to have been acting against Manilius, not for him). In later accounts by Cicero, however, as well as in the credulous accounts of Sallust and later historians, Catiline is implicated in the events relating to Sulla and Autronius, and his involvement is blown up into a ‘first Catilinarian conspiracy’, a plot to murder the consuls and leading senators and seize power (as rumour claimed, absurdly, that Sulla and Autronius intended to do). Had Catiline really intended to do anything of this nature he would not, of course, have been supported by the consul Torquatus at his extortion trial in 65 (nor would Cicero have considered defending him); but once Catiline had resorted to conspiracy in 63, he was thought to have been capable of anything. The ‘first Catilinarian conspiracy’ of 66 and/or 65 has been one of the great red herrings of Roman history, and was fully exposed as a fiction only in 1964 (by two scholars independently, R. J. Seager, Historia, 13 (1964), 338–47, and R. Syme, Sallust (Berkeley etc., 1964), 86–102).

  It was in the election of 64, then, that Catiline stood for the consulship for the first time. He had six rivals: Cicero, Antonius, and four minor figures with no realistic chance of election (Lucius Cassius Longinus, the future Catilinarian conspirator, was one of them). It was a weak field. Antonius’ only claim to consideration was that he was the son of Marcus Antonius the orator, the consul of 99 BC. Like Catiline, the younger Antonius had enriched himself in the Sullan proscriptions; he had then been expelled from the senate by the censors in 70 (for extortion, contempt of court, and debt), but had quickly secured readmission, becoming tribune in c. 68 and praetor in 66. In the praetorian elections for 66, Cicero was the first of the candidates to be elected: he then gave his support to Antonius, with the result that Antonius rose from last place to third. In 64, Antonius and Catiline were the establishment choice for the consulship, and apparently enjoyed the support of Crassus and Caesar. Despite the fact that Antonius owed Cicero a debt of gratitude for his support three years earlier, he and Catiline decided to join forces in order to defeat him. Their bribery was so extensive that the senate considered proposing fresh legislation to impose severer penalties; the proposal was vetoed by a tribune. Cicero then made a strong attack in the senate on Antonius’ and Catiline’s character and record, in a speech entitled In toga candida (‘In a whitened toga’, a whitened toga being the dress worn by candidates for election; this is the origin of the word ‘candidate’). This speech, of which only fragments survive today, is the origin of the myth of the ‘first Catilinarian conspiracy’, and of the allegation that Catiline was responsible for the murder of Gratidianus. (In toga candida did not attack the other four candidates.) Catiline and Antonius replied to the speech by attacking Cicero’s lack of senatorial ancestors. When the election came, Cicero was once again elected first, and Antonius narrowly beat Catiline to second place. (It is interesting to reflect how history might have been different if Catiline had instead beaten Antonius. For one thing, we would not have the Catilinarians.)

  After the elections, Catiline was prosecuted again, this time for murders committed during the Sullan proscriptions (i.e. the murder of persons who had not been proscribed, since the proscriptions themselves were legal). His uncle, Lucius Bellienus, had been convicted of this same offence just before the elections. But Catiline was supported once again by the consulars (though not this time by Torquatus), and was acquitted.

  Cicero, then, had an ally
of Catiline for his colleague as consul. Early in 63, he did a deal with Antonius. In the allocation of provinces for the consuls of 63, Cicero had been assigned Macedonia, which offered an unscrupulous governor opportunities for considerable self-enrichment, while Antonius received the much less lucrative Cisalpine Gaul. Cicero had no wish to govern a province and be absent from Rome, and so he bought Antonius’ allegiance by exchanging provinces with him. Some months later he publicly renounced Cisalpine Gaul, and so, unusually, did not proceed to a province when his year as consul was at an end. (Cisalpine Gaul was assigned instead to the praetor Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer, the future consul of 60.) With hindsight, this was the wrong decision. If he had been absent for a year or two after his consulship, he might have avoided the attacks he was to endure for his execution of the ringleaders of the conspiracy. (On Cicero’s exchange of provinces, see W. Allen, Jr., TAPA 83 (1952), 233–41.)

  In the summer, Catiline was standing for the consulship for the second and final time. The other candidates were Decimus Junius Silanus, who had been one of the candidates in 65, Lucius Licinius Murena, and Servius Sulpicius Rufus, who was a leading jurist and friend of Cicero; Sulpicius and Catiline were both patricians and so it was impossible for both of them to be elected (every year at least one consul had to be a plebeian). During the campaign bribery was once again rife—probably all the candidates except Sulpicius engaged in it—and once again the senate attempted to suppress it. First, a senatorial decree was passed, on Cicero’s proposal, clarifying the terms of the law on electoral malpractice, the lex Calpurnia of 67; afterwards, on Sulpicius’ insistence, Cicero and Antonius together carried a new law, the lex Tullia, regulating electoral practices, defining malpractices more specifically, and adding a ten-year exile to the penalties laid down by the lex Calpurnia. Marcus Porcius Cato, recently elected to the tribunate for 62, threatened to prosecute any candidate for the consulship who engaged in bribery—though he would, he added, make an exception of his brother-in-law Silanus (whom we can probably therefore assume to have been guilty). In the senate a few days before the consular elections (in the second half of July), Cato specifically threatened Catiline with prosecution. Catiline replied enigmatically that if he were ruined by a conviction in the courts, he would see that he brought the whole country down with him.