In fact while Pompey was away there had been another political crisis in Rome. Among the contenders for the consulship of 63 had been one Lucius Sergius Cati-lina, usually known as Catiline. The story that follows is vividly told in one of the earliest works of Roman history, The Conspiracy of Catiline by Sallust (as his Roman name is Anglicized, 86-C.35 Bc), which was to became one of the staples of the Latin curriculum. Catiline was of an obscure patrician family but his fortunes had benefited, like many others, from the proscriptions of Sulla. In the early 60s he had been accused of extortion and it was not until 64 that he was free to stand for the consulship. Having failed then he tried again in 63 (for the year 62), campaigning on a programme which included the abolition of all debts. The hope was that Pompey’s settlement in the east would finance the purchase of land on which the landless poor could be settled. A variety of discontents, including spendthrift nobles and unsuccessful farmers, were attracted to Catiline and when he was once again unsuccessful in the elections there was talk of an armed uprising among his frustrated followers in Etruria.
One of the successful consuls for 63 was Marcus Tullius Cicero, perhaps the most gifted and versatile orator and man of letters Rome was ever to produce. Cicero had
Been born outside Rome, at Marius’ birthplace, Arpinum, in 106 and had come to Rome as a boy, to study law. He spent only a short time in the army and was soon back in Rome making his way as an advocate in the courts. There was no shortage of opportunities for those with talent. The confiscations of Sulla had left a host of embittered landowners while continued Roman expansion overseas had allowed all manner of corruption and extortion to flourish. Within Rome bribery at elections had become frequent. Prosecutions for these excesses could be brought both by the state and private individuals but usually became entangled in the personal rivalries of aristocratic families. As cases were decided by juries, much depended on swaying their members with impassioned oratory. Cicero excelled at the forensic speech where facts were combined with emotion to destroy an opponent.
After some initial success in Rome Cicero developed his talents through two years’ intensive study of rhetoric in Greece. Back in Rome his fame grew and in 75 he became the first man to be elected as quaestor without the normal ten years of military service. He spent his term in office in Sicily and it was as a result of contacts there that he was asked, in 70, to take on the prosecution of a notorious governor, Gaius Verres, who had ruthlessly plundered the island in the late 70s. Cicero’s opening speech was so devastating (it still reads well) that not only was Verres forced into exile but his own defending counsel, Hortensius, hitherto the most respected in Rome, never recovered his reputation. Cicero was now seen as the leading orator in the city. He was elected praetor in 66 and then a consul for 63. (Anthony Everitt, Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician, London, 2001; New York, 2002, is excellent but so too is the older Elizabeth Rawson, Cicero: A Portrait, London, 1975, reissued as a Bristol Classical paperback, 2009. Rawson is particularly interested in Cicero’s philosophical works.)
It was Cicero’s duty as consul to defend the state and he took on the job with relish. His experience of exploiting the emotional volatility of the juries had taught him how to project himself to crowds and he appeared in the senate, dramatically arrayed with armour under his toga, to denounce Catiline to his face. Catiline fled to Etruria where an uprising had already begun, whereupon Cicero unmasked five fellow conspirators in Rome itself and with the support of the senate had them executed. Catiline assumed leadership of the Etrurian rebels but they were no match for the legions sent against them. Catiline and his followers were wiped out.
For Cicero it was his finest hour and many among the senators agreed, heaping him with titles, ‘father of his country’, ‘the new founder of Rome’. Cicero himself never tired of retelling the story (he wrote a long letter to Pompey on the subject, which was received with some coolness by a man who was understandably sensitive to any threat of being upstaged), and from now on saw himself as some kind of senior statesman with a particular responsibility for guiding the state through the turbulent times that confronted it. But the adulation did not last. For many senators Cicero remained a social parvenu, moreover one who had never held military command. His support was destined to remain limited. More ominously, as the exhilaration of the moment faded, there were those who questioned whether he had been
Justified in putting to death Roman citizens, in this case those conspirators rounded up in Rome, without trial. It was a question that was to return to haunt Cicero.
The year 62 was overshadowed by the return of Pompey. No one knew what he would demand when he reached Italy. His feelings had always been well concealed and his contempt for normal constitutional practice well known. In the event as soon as he landed at Brundisium in December he disbanded his army, to the genuine amazement of all. His reasons remain unclear. He may have simply decided that from now on he was going to preside as a senior figure within the constitution and must be seen therefore to be acting correctly. More likely he felt that his prestige was so high that he did not need to bother with armed force. He set out, virtually alone, for Rome to seek the official confirmation by the senate of his settlement in the east and a law to allow him to settle his veterans.
Here he was in for a shock. His first speech to the senate fell completely flat. In effect, the senate, led by such figures as Lucullus, whose command Pompey had relieved in Asia, and Marcus Porcius Cato, great-grandson of the censor and as petulant in his conservatism, would have nothing to do with a man they still considered an upstart who had broken all the sacred conventions of the constitution. (This Cato is normally referred to as Cato of Utica, a north African port where he served as governor.) When Pompey tried to win over Cato by proposing himself as a husband to one of Cato’s unmarried relations he was coldly rejected. Despite several attempts to pass it through the senate Pompey’s settlement remained unratified and his troops, though disbanded, without land. Even an attempt in 60 by a tribune to push through a land bill failed when a consul, Metellus, rallied the senate in opposition to it. Only a magnificent triumph held in 61 briefly revived the glory Pompey had once known.
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