- The Fragments Which Remain of the Speech of M. T. Cicero On Behalf of Marcus Tullius. 1
- The Fragments Which Remain of the Speech of M. T. Cicero On Behalf of Marcus Fonteius.
- The Oration of M. T. Cicero In Behalf of Aulus CÆcina.
- The Speech of M. T. Cicero In Defence of the Proposed Manilian Law
- The Speech of M. T. Cicero In Defence of Aulus Cluentius Avitus.
- The Fragments of the Speech of M. T. Cicero In Defence of Caius Cornelius.
- The Fragments of the Second Speech For Cornelius.
- The Fragments of the Speech of M. T. Cicero In His White Gown, Against C. Antonius and L. Catilina, His Competitors For the Consulship. Delivered In the Senate.
- The Speech of M. T. Cicero In Opposition to Publius Servilius Rullus, a Tribune of the People Concerning the Agrarian Law. Delivered In the Senate. the First Oration On This Subject.
- The Second Speech of M. T. Cicero In Opposition to Publius Servilius Rullus, a Tribune of the People, Concerning the Agrarian Law. Delivered to the People.
- The Third Speech of M. T. Cicero In Opposition to Publius Servilius Rullus, a Tribune of the People, Concerning the Agrarian Law. Delivered to the People.
- The Speech of M. T. Cicero In Defence of Caius Rabirius, Accused of Treason.
- The First Oration of M T. Cicero Against Lucius Catilina. Delivered In the Senate.
- The Second Oration of M. T. Cicero Against Lucius Catilina. Addressed to the People.
- The Third Oration of M. T. Cicero Against Lucius Catilina. Addressed to the People.
- The Fourth Oration of M. T. Cicero Against Lucius Catilina Delivered In the Senate.
- The Oration of M. T. Cicero In Defence of L. Murena, Prosecuted For Bribery.
- The Oration of M. T. Cicero In Defence of Publius Sylla.
- The Speech of M. T. Cicero For Aulus Licinius Archias, the Poet.
- The Speech of M. T. Cicero In Defence of Lucius Flaccus.
- The Speech of M. T. Cicero After His Return. Addressed to the Senate.
- The Speech of M. T. Cicero After His Return. Addressed to the People.
- The Speech of M. T. Cicero Against Publius Clodius and Caius Curio.
- The Speech of M. T. Cicero In Defence of Marcus Æmilius Scaurus. 1
THE FRAGMENTS OF THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO IN HIS WHITE GOWN, AGAINST C. ANTONIUS AND L. CATILINA, HIS COMPETITORS FOR THE CONSULSHIP.
DELIVERED IN THE SENATE.
THE ARGUMENT.
This oration was delivered the year after the speech for Cornelius had been spoken. Cicero being now in his forty-third year, and of the proper legal age, declared himself a candidate for the consulship the ensuing year. He had six competitors, Publius Sulpicius Galba, Lucius Sergius Catilina, Caius Antonius, Lucius Cassius Longinus, Quintus Cornificius, and Caius Licinius Sacerdos. Cicero was the only novus homo among them. Antonius and Catilina were the most formidable of his rivals, having coalesced together against him, and being both supported by the joint influence of Crassus and Cæsar. They practised such open bribery, that the senate thought it necessary to check the practice by a new and rigorous law. But this law was vetoed by Quintus Mucius Orestinus, one of the tribunes of the people, in spite of his great obligations to Cicero, who had defended him on a criminal trial. In a debate which arose in the senate about the power of this veto of Orestinus, Cicero rose, and after some expostulation with Orestinus, broke into a severe invective against Antonius and Catilina, in this oration, of which only a few fragments remain. It is called the oration “in a white gown,” because a white gown was the proper habit of all candidates, from which indeed their name was derived.
I say, O Conscript Fathers, that on the night before Catiline and Antony with their agents met at the house of some man of noble birth, one very well known from, and habituated to, gains derived from this sort of liberality,
* * * * * *
[He means either the house of Cæsar, or of Crassus; for they were the most eager adversaries of Cicero, out of jealousy at the influence which he was acquiring among the citizens. And Cicero accused Crassus of having been the original instigator of that conspiracy which, in the consulship of Cotta and Torquatus, the year before this speech was delivered, had been formed by Catiline and Piso.]
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For what friend or client can that man have, who has murdered so many citizens? and who said that he would not try a cause against a foreigner on fair terms in his own city?
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[Cicero afterwards charges Catiline with having behaved with great personal cruelty in the civil wars between Sylla and Marius, in which he had been a partisan of Sylla. He had murdered Quintus Cæcilius, Marcus Volumnius, and Lucius Tantasius; and had cut off the head of Marcus Marius Gratidianus, a man who had been twice prætor, and had carried it through the streets of the city in his own hand; which is a deed which Cicero often reproached him with throughout this speech. And Antonius had plundered numbers of people in Achaia; so that the Greeks whom he had plundered prosecuted him before Marcus Lucullus the prætor. He had been expelled the senate by the censors Lucius Gellius Poplicola and Cnæus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus, six years before; who had stated as their reason, that he had plundered the allies, evaded a trial, and that he was so much in debt that he had mortgaged the whole of his property.]
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Nor did he even then look to himself, when he was censured by every weighty resolution of yours.
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[Catiline had been prætor, and after his prætorship had had Africa for his province, which he had oppressed so severely, that ambassadors were sent by the Africans to complain to the senate of his conduct.]
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He learnt how great is the power of the courts of justice when he was acquitted; if indeed his was to be called a trial, or his escape an acquittal.
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[The year before, Catiline, on his return from Africa, had been prosecuted for extortion by Clodius, then a young man. He had been defended by Cicero, according to Fenestella, which I doubt, because Cicero makes no mention of it, though it would have been a good subject for him to reproach Catiline with; and as he does reproach his competitor Antonius with ingratitude.]
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[What follows next is addressed to Antonius.]
Do you not know that I was elected the first prætor? but that you were only raised from your position of lowest on the list to that of third, by the concession of your competitors, by the union of the centuries, and especially by my kindness?
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[Quintus Mucius, who is addressed in the next paragraph, was a tribune of the people, and he had interposed to prevent the law against bribery from being carried, which he was supposed to have done to gratify Catiline.]
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But I am indignant, O Quintus Mucius, that you should have so bad an opinion of the republic as to deny yesterday that I was worthy of the consulship. What? Is the Roman people less competent to exert due diligence in choosing a defender for itself than you are for yourself? For you, when Lucius Calenus was prosecuting you for robbery, you preferred having me above all men as the advocate of your fortunes. And can the Roman people be guided by your advice to reject the man as its defender in the most honourable causes, whose advice you had recourse to in the most infamous one? Unless, perhaps, you will say this, that at the time that you were prosecuted for robbery by Lucius Calenus you saw that I was able to be of very little use to you.
* * * * * *
He disgraced himself by every sort of lewdness and profligacy; he dyed his hands in impious murder, he plundered the allies, he violated the laws, the courts of justice.
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Why should I say how you polluted the province?
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For how you behaved there I do not dare to say, since you have been acquitted. I imagine that Roman knights must have been liars; that the documentary evidence of a most honourable city was false; that Quintus Metellus Pius told lies; that Africa told lies. I suppose that those judges who decided that you were innocent saw something or other. O wretched man, not to see that you were not acquitted by that decision, but only reserved for some more severe tribunal, and some more fearful punishment!
[Is it possible that Cicero should say this if he had been Catiline’s advocate when he was acquitted?]
* * * * * *
But he showed how greatly he reverenced the people, when he beheaded an exceedingly popular man in the sight of the people.
[This refers to Catiline having carried the head of Marius in triumph through the city.]
By what insanity he has been induced to despise me. I have no idea. Did he think that I should endure it with equanimity? or did he not see by the case of his own most intimate friend, that I could not endure even injuries done to others with any patience?
[He evidently refers here to Caius Verres.]
* * * * * *
The other having sold all the cattle, and having assigned over nearly all the pasture land, still retains the shepherds, with whom he says that he can, whenever he pleases, immediately stir up a war of runaway slaves.
[He means Caius Antonius.]
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The other induced one over whom he had influence, immediately to promise the Roman people gladiators, whom he was not bound to provide; whom he himself, when a candidate for the consulship, had surveyed, and picked out, and purchased, and it was done in the presence of the Roman people.
[He appears to mean Quintus Gallius, whom he afterwards defended when prosecuted for bribery. For when he was a candidate for the prætorship, because he had not given any shows of wild beasts in his ædileship, he gave a show of gladiators on the pretence of exhibiting them in honour of his father.]
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Wherefore, if you wish to increase your wages, NA* * * * I am content with that law by which we have seen two consuls elect convicted at one time.
[He refers to the Calpurnian law, which Caius Calpurnius Piso had passed three years before, about bribery. The consuls he alludes to were Publius Sylla and Publius Antonius.]
And to say nothing of that man, a robber when in Sylla’s army, a gladiator on his entrance into the city, a coachman on his victory,
* * * * * *
[It is evident he is speaking of Antonius. He says, “that he was a robber in Sylla’s” army, on account of the squadrons of cavalry with which he ravaged Achaia. The words “a gladiator on his entrance into the city,” refer to the proscription that ensued; “a coachman on his victory,” to the fact that Sylla, after his victory, exhibited games in the circus, in which men of honourable birth exhibited themselves as charioteers, and among them, Caius Antonius.]
But is it not a prodigy and a miracle, that you, O Catilina, should hope for, or even think of, the consulship? For from whom do you ask it? From the chiefs of the state, who, when Lucius Volcatius held a council, did not choose you to be even allowed to stand for it?
[It has been said already, that when Catilina was governor in Africa, the Africans sent ambassadors to complain to the senate of his conduct there, and many of the senators reflected on him very severely. In consequence, when he announced that he was standing for the consulship, Lucius Volcatius Tullus, the consul, convened a council to decide whether any notice ought to be taken at all of Catiline if he did offer himself. For he was at the moment under prosecution for extortion. On this, Catiline for the time withdrew from that competition.]
Do you ask it from the senators? who by their own authority had almost stripped you of all your honours, and surrendered you in chains to the Africans.
[For when Catiline was tried for extortion, the majority of the votes in the ballot-box in which the senators voted was for his conviction; but he was acquitted by the votes of the knights and tribunes.]
Do you ask it from the order of knights, which you have slaughtered?
[The equestrian order had taken the part of Cinna against Sylla, and had, on that account, been put to death in great numbers after the final victory of Sylla.]
or from the people? to whom your cruelty afforded such a spectacle that no one could behold it without grief, or can now recollect it without groaning.
[He is again referring to his having carried the head of Marius Gratidianus through the streets.]
* * * * * *
which head, while still full of life and breath, he himself carried to Sylla in his own hands from the Janiculan Hill to the temple of Apollo.
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[Notice must be taken that this was not the temple of Apollo on the Palatine Hill, for that was erected by Augustus, after his victory at Actium. This temple was that one outside the Carmental Gate, between the vegetable market and the Flaminian Circus.]
What can you say in your defence?NA* * * Which you will not be allowed to say.
* * * * * *
[A little after he adds,]
Lastly, they could deny it, and they have denied it. You have not left your impudence room to deny it. They, therefore, will be said to have been fine judges, if, after having condemned Luscius while he denied it, they acquitted Catiline though he confessed it.
[This Lucius Luscius, a noted centurion of Sylla’s party, and one who had acquired great riches by his victory, had been condemned a little while before Cicero made this speech. Lucius Bellienus, too, had been condemned, whom Cicero calls the uncle of Catiline. They had both committed murders during the proscription.]
He then says that he was not ignorant; since even they said that they had acted ignorantly, and that if they had slain any one, they had only obeyed the general and dictator, and that they could deny it, but that Catiline could not deny it.
[In fact, Catiline was prosecuted a few months after for the very crimes with which Cicero is reproaching him. For after the elections were over, and Catiline had been rejected, Lucius Lucullus prosecuted him as an assassin.]
Have you this dignity which you rely on, and, therefore, despise and scorn me? or that other dignity, which you have acquired by all the rest of your life? when you have lived in such a manner that there was no place so holy, that your presence did not bring suspicion of criminality into it, even when there was no guilt.
[For Fabia, a vestal virgin, had been prosecuted for adultery with Catiline, and had been acquitted. And she was the sister of Terentia, Cicero’s wife, on which account Cicero had exerted his influence in her behalf.]
When you were detected in acts of adultery; when you yourself detected adulterers; when you out of the same adultery found yourself both a wife and a daughter.
[It is said that Catiline had committed adultery with a woman who was afterwards his mother-in-law; and that, after that adultery with her, he married her daughter. Lucceius also reproached him with this in the orations which he wrote against him.]
Why need I say how you plundered the province? though all the Roman people raised an outcry against you, and resisted you. For how you behaved there I do not venture to say, as you have been acquitted.
* * * * * *
I pass over this nefarious attempt of yours, that day so bitter and grievous to the Roman people, when, with Cnæus Piso for your accomplice, and no one else, you intended to make a general slaughter of the nobles.
[There was a general belief that Catiline and Cnæus Piso, a profligate young man, had formed a conspiracy to murder the senate the year before, in the consulship of Cotta and Torquatus; and that slaughter had only been prevented from taking place because Catiline did not give the signal agreed upon. Piso was afterwards assassinated in Spain, some say by the dependants, and with the connivance of, Pompey.]
* * * * * *
Did you forget that, when we were both standing for the prætorship, you begged me to concede the first rank to you? and do you recollect that, as you were frequently begging this of me with great earnestness, I answered you that it was an impudent thing of you to make such a request when Boculus had not been able to obtain the same favour from you?
[Boculus was a noted character in the circus.]
* * * * * *
[He is speaking now of some profligate citizens.]
Who, after they found themselves unable to cut the sinews of the Roman citizens with that Spanish poniard of theirs, attempted to draw two daggers against the republic at once.
[By the Spanish poniard he means Cnæus Piso. The two daggers evidently mean Catiline and Antonius.]
* * * * * *
You know that this man had already instigated Licinius the gladiator, a partisan of Catiline’s, and Quintus Curius, a man of quæstorian rank.
[This Curius was a noted gambler.]
[Both Catiline and Antonius made insulting replies to this speech of Cicero; inveighing chiefly against its novelty. However, Cicero was elected consul unanimously; and Antonius beat Catiline by the votes of a few centuries.]
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