De Coniuratione Catilinae

It was October 63 BC when Cicero won his consulship against Catiline.  Cicero was a first-time consul, a “Novus Homo”, the first member of his family to reach consulship. He was best known for his rhetorical skills in the Roman courtroom as a defense attorney. When his one year term as a consul was coming to an end, Cicero was alerted one night by Markus Crassus, a Roman General and Statesman, and other nobles that they were threatened with death and the destruction of Rome. These threats came in letters, presumably drafted by Catiline. Since Cicero faced challenges as Catiline was planning on sabotaging Rome, he, as a consul, felt  it necessary to unveil the conspiracy before all the senators in a meeting the day after the threatening letters were received. “On the night of November 6 Catiline called together the leaders of the conspiracy to the house of M. Porcius Laeca in the street of the Scythe Makers. He laid the situation before them, pointing out the dangers of further delay, and no doubt once more expatiating upon the rewards of success.”

To that effect, Cicero summoned the Senate to meet at an unusual location: the temple of Jupiter Stator located on the Palatine Hill. Cleverly planned, the temple of Jupiter held a special historical significance because it had been built by Romulus to commemorate his great triumph against the Sabines. Magna dis immortalibus habenda est atque huic ipsi Iovi Statori, antiquissimo custodi huius urbis, gratia, quod hanc tam taetram, tam horribilem tamque infestam rei publicae pestemtotiens iam effugimus.” “The Temple of Jupiter Stator, then, was associated with Rome’s first great military crisis…(it) served as a testament to the leadership and heroism of Romulus, who had saved the newly founded city at a moment of profound danger.” Cicero took advantage of the location to suggest that Catiline was the enemy and he resembled Romulus in this ongoing crisis, urging his fellow senators to take actions against Catiline. “Ego si hoc optimum factu iudicarem, patres conscripti, Catilinam morte multari, unius usuram horae gladiatori isti ad vivendum non dedissem.” The message was unswerving and urgent. The Romans needed a strong-minded leader to prevail in this upcoming war.

In addressing Catiline in front of the Senate, Cicero opens his speech with a rhetorical question, “quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia?” (“For how much longer will you continue to abuse our patience, Catiline? For how much longer will that rage of yours make a mockery of us? To what point will your unbridled audacity show itself?”). It is an unusual opening––for the consul usually calls a senate meeting to address the senators, while Cicero spoke directly to Catiline instead. Cicero was clearly exasperated that a person conspiring against Cicero and Rome would still dare to show up at a meeting where he is being discussed. This made him seem more audacious to Cicero than a person who just created the conspiracy. However, it was the last Senate meeting for Catiline. As I will demonstrate in this article, Cicero’s exasperation was expressed by his linguistic and rhetorical choices; the usage of pronouns, repetitions and climax in his narration communicated the urgency of the situation and his confidence in his ability to respond to such a crisis as the Consul of Rome.

Cicero had to act with assertive determination: he did not have much power of persuasion despite being consul. Because Catiline came from an old and distinguished family, the senators trusted him more than Cicero, a “novus homo”, the exact opposite of what Cicero desired. Therefore, Cicero first addressed the senators as Patres Consripti, which would pique their curiosity by the unusual forcefulness of the address generated by such an opening, and make them eager to hear what their consul Cicero had to say about this man, Catiline, who he claimed had abused their patience. By using the inclusive pronoun nostra in the opening, it also directly set the speaker and the listeners in opposition to Catiline. Cicero wanted to present Catiline as a collective enemy of the Senate and convince them that Catiline was indeed planning an attack on Rome. The use of the plural generates a sense of exclusion for Catiline and isolates him from the other senators, which is emphasized by the apostrophe at the end of the first sentence, while, at the same time, the senators are, willingly or not, presented as unified group against Catiline. The following set of questions underline this binary opposition between the single and the group by means of linguistic and rhetorical devices Cicero needs to employ in order to make up for the absence of proof. 

One main goal for Cicero in the first Catilinarian was to present Catiline in opposition to himself and, more importantly, the entire Senate. As a consul in the Roman Republic who had limited power because of the Senate, Cicero needed to convince the senators to make an executive decision to expel Catiline. “Polliceor hoc vobis, patres conscripti, tantam in nobis consulibus fore diligentiam, tantam in vobis auctoritatem, tantam in equitibus Romanis virtutem, tantam in omnibus bonis consensionem, ut Catilinae profectione omnia patefacta, inlustrata, oppressa, vindicata esse videatis.” 

Cicero bore the burden to prove both the reason why Catiline was an evil character and why the Senate should be on Cicero’s side, which was an extremely challenging task for him; the use of his rhetorical skills was critical. Cicero tried to accomplish this mission by presenting Catiline as a plague and a wildly audacious man. “quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia?...te conferri pestem quam tu in nos omnis iam diu machinaris”. Effrenata iactabit audacia set an opposition against Catiline, making his viewpoint straightforward and strong; first defining his audacia effrenata Cicero stated that there were no limits to what Catiline would do, furthermore he metaphorically called him a plague for the people, identified again with the seemingly inclusive but actually exclusive nos. In addition, Cicero attacked Catiline not on the actual facts that he could not prove, but on the judgement of Catiline based on his previous actions (“pestem quam tu in nos omnis iam diu machinaris”). As clearly stated in the Rhetorica ad Herennium, this was a rhetorical practice that a prosecutor would use to attack an enemy in absence of actual proof of crime: “Deinde vita hominis ex ante factis spectabitur”. Cicero was therefore anticipating his strategy that was further developed in the second Catilinarian, where Cicero also depicted Catiline’s supporters as rioters and criminals. 

In the second Catilinarian, Cicero faced the same rhetorical challenges and he used the same strategies, except this time he delivered the speech to the Roman people. In the opening sentences, Cicero addressed Catiline with “furentem audacia and scelus anhelantem”, which is similar to the first Catilinarian’s “effrenata … audacia”. He continued the metaphor of “pestem, pestem patriae nefarie molientem”, while also adding patriae to underline how dangerous Catiline was, emphasized by pernicies within the same paragraph. Instead of using nos to create contradictions between Catiline and now the people, Cicero presented Catiline as an enemy of every Roman citizen.

After stating how audacious Catiline is, Cicero used the rhetorical device anaphora, the repetition of a single word at the beginning of subsequent clauses [ancient definition of ANAPHORA], to elaborate on the arrogance and false pride of Catiline; “nihilne te nocturnum praesidium Palati, nihil urbis vigiliae, nihil timor populi, nihil concursus bonorum omnium, nihil hic munitissimus habendi senatus locus, nihil horum ora voltusque moverunt?” The repetition of the word nihil before the word moverunt at the end of the sentence expressed Cicero’s exasperation because of the multiple affected parts of Catiline’s presence and, by inversion, emphasized the audacity and shamelessness of Catiline, showing that Catiline did not care about the people around him and was dangering the Roman city. 

Cicero asked a series of rhetorical questions, emphasizing them by the repetition of multiple words (quo usque), as well as by the addition of extra words, such as tandem. In the first Catilinarian, in order to attack Catiline (“Quid proxima, quid superiore nocte egeris, ubi fueris, quos convocaveris, quid consilii ceperis, quem nostrum ignorare arbitraris”), Cicero showed the Roman senators what they did not know, while at the beginning of the second Catilinarian the only question asked was for the senators (putatis), to call the Senate to think about Catiline’s actions. The actions that Cicero wanted the Senators to think about were listed before the putatis, again with the use of the anaphora (of quod). In both cases, Cicero used the anaphora with asyndeton to strengthen his attack on Catiline. Cicero employed the same strategy but in different ways because the addresses and the outcome of the two speeches were different, as the second Catilinarian was delivered to the people. Cicero used the anaphora of question words to isolate Catiline in front of the Senate in the first speech, while in the second Cicero had anaphora of quod that listed the actions, but the emphasis on the Senators was decreased by addressing them only once.  

It is interesting to note the climax created by the order of the words in anaphora. There is a movement from the outside (Palati, Senatus locus) to the inside (eorum - i.e. senators- voltus) that communicates how close the danger was. Since Cicero was talking to the Senate, he made the senators view the situation from somewhere further away to something that was closing in on them, delivering a sense of urgency.

Cicero repeatedly used the rhetorical device of the anaphora of the negative conjunction ( non… non… non..) with a similar climax, to emphasize not only the movement from the outside (latera and foro) to the inside (domesticos parietes), but also to provide a sense of safeness after Catiline left the city. It made the people imagine the situation from somewhere over the walls and forum of Rome to somewhere closer to them, creating an air of tension. 

The Catilinarian Conspiracy is a truly historically impactful event; Cicero’s famous opening sentence “quod usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra” has been widely referred to in modern literature. Cicero became the hero of the city of Rome at last, because he successfully led the war against Catiline and his fellow conspirators. Although only a limited perspective on the Catilinarian Conspiracy has been examined, Cicero’s priceless speeches provide us with invaluable insight, as first hand resources of such amazingly turbulent times.