Catiline


Lucius Sergius Catilina, known in English as Catiline, was a Roman politician and soldier best known for instigating the Catilinarian conspiracy, a failed attempt to seize control of the Roman state in 63 BC.
Born to an ancient patrician family, he joined Sulla during Sulla's civil war and profited from Sulla's purges of his political enemies, becoming a wealthy man. In the early 60s BC, he served as praetor and then as governor of Africa. Upon his return to Rome, he attempted to stand for the consulship but was rebuffed; he then was beset with legal challenges over alleged corruption in Africa and his actions during Sulla's proscriptions. Acquitted on all charges with the support of influential friends in Roman politics, he stood for the consulship in 64 and in 63 BC.
Defeated in the consular Citizens' assemblies of the Roman Republic, he concocted a plot to take the consulship by force, bringing together poor rural plebs, Sullan veterans, and other senators whose political careers had stalled. Crassus revealed the coup attempt – which involved armed uprisings in Etruria – to Cicero, one of the consuls, in October 63 BC, but it took until November before evidence of Catiline's participation emerged. Discovered, he left the city to join his rebellion. In early January 62 BC, at the head of a rebel army near Pistoria, Catiline fought the Battle of Pistoria against republican forces. He was killed and his army annihilated.
Catiline's name became a byword for doomed and treasonous rebellion in the years after his death. Sallust, in his monograph on the conspiracy, Bellum Catilinae, painted Catiline as a symbol of the Roman Republic's moral decline, as much of a victim as a perpetrator, as his characterization of "a ravaged mind" indicates.

Early life

Family background

Catiline was a member of an ancient patrician family, the gens Sergia, who claimed descent from Sergestus, a Trojan companion of Aeneas. While Sallust says he was one of the nobiles, which implies a consular heritage, the specifics are unclear: no member of the gens Sergia had held the consulship since the second consulship of Gnaeus Sergius Fidenas Coxo in 429 BC; a few other Sergii had served in the consular tribunate, but the last was in 380 BC.
The exact year of Catiline's birth is unknown. From the offices he held it can be deduced that he was born no later than 108 BC, or 106 BC if patricians enjoyed a right to hold magistracies two years earlier than plebeians. Catiline's parents were Lucius Sergius Silus and Belliena. His father was poor by the standards of the aristocracy. His maternal uncle had served as praetor in 105 BC; earlier, Catiline's great-grandfather – Marcus Sergius Silus – had served with distinction as praetor in 197 BC during the Second Punic War.

Early career

During the Social War, Catiline served under Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, along with Strabo's son – the more famous Pompey – and Cicero. His specific title was not recorded. This is recorded on the Asculum Inscription, a bronze tablet which was once nailed to the wall of an unknown public building in Rome, which records the names of Pompeius Strabo's council when he granted citizenship to several auxiliaries in his army; a Lucius Sergius is mentioned there, almost certainly Catiline.
He married a woman named Gratidia, one of Gaius Marius's nieces. During Sulla's civil war, Catiline joined with the Sullans in 82 BC and served as a lieutenant. According to many of the ancient sources, he made himself wealthy during the Sullan proscriptions by killing his brother and two of his brothers-in-law. Cicero accused him of helping Quintus Lutatius Catulus avenge himself upon Catiline's wife's brother, Marcus Marius Gratidianus, the prosecutor who had caused the death of Catulus' father. Cicero's account – given in a campaign speech attacking Catiline, who was a rival candidate for the consulship of 63 BC – has Catiline beheading Gratidianus and then carrying the head through the city from the Janiculum to Sulla at the Temple of Apollo; later accounts embellish the tale, describing Catiline as engaging in gratuitous cruelties against Gratidianus, as described in later sources such as Livy, Valerius Maximus, Lucan, and Florus. Some modern historians doubt Catiline was involved in Gratidianus' death except perhaps in an auxiliary role, placing blame instead on Catulus and attributing the story of Catiline's involvement to Ciceronean political slander. Regardless, Catiline did engage in profiteering from the Sullan proscriptions, likely purchasing estates for fractions of their true value, and by the end of Sulla's dictatorship, he had become a rich man.
In 73 BC, he may have been prosecuted for adultery – apud pontifices – with a Vestal Virgin named Fabia, a half-sister of Cicero's wife Terentia. While evidence for Fabia's prosecution is clear, only Orosius mentions Catiline's prosecution. Conviction would have led to execution for sacrilege. Catiline's friend Catulus – probably the president of the court and definitely one of the pontiffs – and other former consuls rallied to help Fabia, and possibly Catiline if he too was prosecuted, securing their acquittals. Catiline and Cicero "must have been relieved"; Catiline, for his part, regarded himself in Catulus' debt.

Attempts at the consulship

Catiline served as praetor some time before 68 BC; T. R. S. Broughton in Magistrates of the Roman Republic dates the praetorship exactly to 68 BC. He then served as propraetorian governor of Africa for two years.
Some time in the mid-60s BC, Catiline married the wealthy and beautiful Aurelia Orestilla, daughter of the consul of 71 BC, Gnaeus Aufidius Orestes; this was his second marriage. Sallust relates that he did so not out of money, but only due to her good looks, something which Romans believed to be discreditable. Cicero later claimed in his Catilinarians that Catiline murdered his first wife and Orestilla's son to make way for the match; he also claimed in In Toga Candida that Orestilla was Catiline's own illegitimate daughter. Cicero's allegations "cannot be taken at face value and reveal more about typical themes and slanders found in Roman invective than they do about Catiline's domestic history".

Elections of 66 BC and trial

Upon his return to Rome in 66 BC, embassies from Africa protested his maladministration. Catiline also attempted to stand for the consulship, but his candidacy was rejected by the presiding magistrate. Sallust and Cicero attribute the rejection to an imminent extortion trial, but this decision may have been made in terms of the contested elections for the consulship of 65 BC: before Catiline's return to Rome, the first consular elections were held but both men elected were deposed after they were both convicted of bribery; the second elections, after Catiline's return, were held with the same candidates – the two convicts excepted – returning two different consuls. Catiline's candidacy could have been rejected not due to expectations of an extortion trial, but rather for the mere fact that he was not a candidate in the first election.
Following the elections, early in 65 BC, the ancient sources give contradictory descriptions of what is called a "First Catilinarian conspiracy" in which Catiline conspired with the deposed consular candidates from the first election to recover the consulship by force. In some tellings, Catiline himself was to assume the consulship. Regardless, the supposed date of this alleged conspiracy, 5 February, came and went without incident. Modern scholars overwhelmingly believe that this "First Catilinarian conspiracy" is fictitious.
Later that year, in the second half of 65 BC, Catiline was brought to trial for corruption during his governorship. The prosecution was led by Publius Clodius Pulcher, but Catiline was defended by many influential former consuls, including one of the consuls of 65 BC. Clodius, prosecuting, may have helped Catiline out by selecting a favourable jury that would be impressed by the consulares coming to Catiline's aid. But scholarly opinion on whether Clodius purposefully manipulated the proceedings for acquittal is divided. In the end, the jury – composed of senators, equites, and the tribuni aerarii – divided: the senators voted for conviction, the latter two panels for acquittal. Cicero, not yet having broken with Catiline, considered defending Catiline at this trial, but eventually decided not to; Catiline's advocate is unknown.

Consular elections of 64 BC

Catiline's candidacy at the consular elections in 64 BC was accepted. Also standing for the consulship that year were Cicero and Gaius Antonius Hybrida; the three were the only candidates with a realistic chance of winning. Catiline, bankrolled by Caesar and Crassus, distributed large bribes; after a bill against electoral bribery was defeated, Cicero gave In toga candida, a speech full of invective attacking Catiline and Antonius. Antonius and Catiline were allies during the election and attempted to beat Cicero. Their strategy, however, was unsuccessful. Cicero was carried unanimously and Antonius narrowly defeated Catiline.
This was also the year that Gaius Julius Caesar was president of the standing court on assassinations. His willingness – along with Cato the Younger in the treasury demanding repayment of loans from the civil wars – to pursue the beneficiaries of the Sullan civil war may have swayed voters away from supporting Catiline. This may also have been reinforced by timely conviction of Catiline's maternal uncle on charges of murder during the proscriptions. After the consular elections, Catiline was brought up on charges of murdering people during the proscriptions, perhaps of Gratidianus. Prosecuted by Lucius Lucceius or possibly Caesar, Catiline was again acquitted when a number of former consuls spoke in his defence. There is no evidence that Caesar affected Catiline's acquittal.