James Leigh Strachan-Davidson

“ Both these senators have pronounced sentences stern as their own dignity and the gravity of the crisis demand. The one thinks that men who have attempted to slaughter the Roman people, to destroy our Empire, to blot out the name of Rome, ought not to be allowed to enjoy a moment longer the life and breath which we all draw in common; and he bears in mind that this punishment has often been inflicted on wicked citizens in this commonwealth. ”

“ For this mad adventure it is, that nature has fashioned you, that choice has trained you, that fortune has spared you. You never loved peace, nor even war unless it were war as a pirate. You have found for yourself a gang of ruffians, recruited from among broken men, whom not only all luck but all hope has deserted. ”

“ To train an army for civil war and generals fit to command it must needs occupy, if not so long a stretch of time as Cæsar afterwards employed in the same task in Gaul, at least several years of hard fighting with enemies who were to be sought on the frontiers of the Empire. In the meantime the rival interests in Rome were to be alarmed as little as possible; the Senate and Pompey were to be left to counteract each other by their mutual jealousies, and the Roman Knights were to be kept quiet by being allowed to see Crassus, the greatest of all the moneyed men, at the head of the movement. ”

“ The Law of Caius Gracchus said that no Roman citizen was to be condemned to death without the command of the People. The democratic exposition of that law was that, given a citizen, no amount of treason short of physically appearing in arms against the State could constitute an enemy. The view of the Senate was that a man who from inside the walls co-operated with insurgents was really and truly an enemy, and a more dangerous one because he was posted in ambush. ”

“ Their power of judgment was impaired, partly by the dazzling contrast of these hopes with their present embarrassments, partly by the deluding atmosphere of secret cabals in which the vapourings and daydreams of one hour are apt to become the fixed ideas of the next, and above all perhaps by the impatience of weakness which, when once men have begun to conspire, makes them feel that suspense is intolerable and that something, no matter what, must be done. ”

“ For Cæsar, as his own dignity and the splendour of his ancestry required, has laid this sentence in our hands, as a pledge of his enduring loyalty to the State. The truth is, that Caius Cæsar knows that the Sempronian Law is intended for the benefit of Roman citizens, and that the man who is an enemy to the State cannot by any possibility be a citizen; he knows likewise that the very man [50] who carried the Sempronian Law paid the penalty of his treason without the command of the People. ”

“ But if you wish to be the instrument of my praise and my reputation, then set forth with all your crew of reprobates, betake yourself to Manlius, summon all criminals to your standard, sever yourself from every honest man, declare war against your country, glory in the act of impiety, that it may be clear that you have not been thrust forth among strangers, but that you have sought the company of your fellows. ”

“ These would be ready enough for deeds of bloodshed; and the mass of the populace crowded together in a great city without industry, pauperised by doles of State corn, puffed up with the conceit that they were the masters of the world and yet painfully conscious that they gained little either in comfort or in dignity by their pre-eminence, would, it was thought, welcome a disturbance in which they might hope to gain, while at the worst they had nothing to lose. ”

“ We shall wage a fair war with none to hinder us against a declared enemy. Unquestionably we have ruined the man and triumphed over him, now that we have drawn him from his secret ambush into open piracy." [26]
Cicero answers to the people, as he had already done to the Senate, the criticisms which he fears will be made on his policy in allowing the rebel captain to put himself at the head of his forces. He protests that though he would have been justified in killing him, yet that his execution would have been useless to the commonwealth. ”

“ The Roman constitution, while restricting the capital jurisdiction of the magistrate over citizens, allows him to use any amount of force against enemies of the State. A citizen may commit acts which constitute him an enemy, in which case he by his own deed renounces his civic privileges. ”

“ To let the prisoners go would be manifestly impolitic, but without breaking the law which forbade that any Roman citizen should be punished with death except by command of the People, measures might be taken which would render the conspirators powerless to do harm for the future. ”

“ Catiline's associates would have declared his innocence, would have made a martyr of him, and would have used the outcry against the consul in order to carry out Catiline's schemes more effectively. Now that he has set himself in arms against the State, no one can any longer pretend to disbelieve in his conspiracy, and so not only he but his accomplices whom he leaves behind can be safely dealt with. To these last Cicero addresses significant words of warning. "They are conscious," he says, [27] "that all the resolutions of their council of the night before last have been reported to me. ”

“ And so a man of his known kindliness and clemency does not hesitate to commit Publius Lentulus to a life-long dungeon and chains; he provides that for the future no man shall be permitted to gain credit for himself by alleviating the punishment of Lentulus, or to pose as the people's friend, while bringing calamity on the Roman People ”

“ Silanus the consul-elect took alarm, and explained away his own motion by an unworthy quibble. It was worded in the terms "that the extreme penalty be inflicted on the prisoners," and he now interpreted this to mean the same as Cæsar's proposal; "for perpetual imprisonment," he said "is the extreme penalty which can be inflicted on a Roman citizen." [46] Many of Cicero's friends approved of Cæsar's motion, as it would undoubtedly relieve the consul from the risk and responsibility which he would incur by the actual infliction of death. ”

“ In the midst of such a crew how you will take your joy, how you will triumph in delight, how you will revel in satisfaction, when in the whole circle of your associates you never hear the voice of one honest man, nor see one honest man's face."
That night Catiline left the city for Etruria. Next day (Nov. 9th) Cicero addressed a speech (the Second Catilinarian Oration) to the Roman People, in which he announced the departure of Catiline, and laid before them the whole situation. He exults in the thought that he is now permitted to fight with the traitor in the daylight. ”

“ A civil war, a massacre, a proscription, a confiscation appeared things possible and hopeful. They could point to men who in the late troubles had suddenly emerged from poverty to enormous wealth and from obscurity to domination. ”

“ Catiline was to seize the government with the same title of consul, which Marius and Cinna had borne, there was to be a general abolition of debt and recall of condemned criminals, and the old story of massacre and confiscation was to be renewed.
It will now be clear how widely the plans of Catiline differed from those of Cæsar. The revolution projected by the great leaders of the democratic party was an elaborate and far-reaching scheme. It recognised the fact that Rome was no longer the chief strategical point, and that the first requisite was a base of operations in the provinces. ”

“ For this reason it was not mentioned amongst the punishments against which a right of appeal was guaranteed to Roman citizens. All the laws which treat of the right of appeal speak of death, of scourging and of fine, as the penalties which are appealed against. The Senate then, or rather the consul acting under the advice of the Senate, is justified (so we must suppose Cæsar to maintain) in punishing dangerous enemies of the State so long as the punishment inflicted is not one forbidden totidem verbis by the statute. ”

“ The soundness of Cato's advice and the wisdom of Cicero's action were soon manifested; the army of Catiline, which had remained unaffected by all the previous decrees of the Senate, began, as soon as the news of Lentulus' execution arrived, to disperse and dwindle until it was reduced to three thousand men. These were soon confronted near Pistoria, some twenty miles from Fæsulæ, by a superior force under Petreius, a brave and experienced officer who was acting as lieutenant to the second consul Antonius. ”

“ It took Sulla three years to dispose of his great enemy, and until this was done, happen what might in Italy, he could not stir. [9] A three years' respite was thus allowed to the new government, and it was only by its own folly that it did not use the time in building up a military and political power against which Sulla would have found it hard to contend. But what chance was there of a similar respite for Catiline? Mithridates was already driven from Asia and Pompey was ready to set sail immediately. A massacre in Rome would have brought the Nobles thronging to his camp ”

“ He never lost his head though pressed by open enemies without and beset with traitors within the city. He refrained from striking prematurely, but allowed time for Catiline to appear in the rebel camp and for Lentulus to commit himself by overt acts of treason. He made the guilt of the conspirators so manifest, that even Cæsar was obliged to concur in the verdict of "Guilty," and to sanction it by proposing an alternative sentence as on convicted criminals. He baffled all attempts within the city by his vigilance, and finally blasted the hopes of Catiline by the execution of his confederates. ”

“ As consul, Cicero has ample evidence and ample precedent for ordering him to execution on the spot, but it does not suit his convenience to do so. "I will have you put to death, Catiline," he says, [22] "but it shall be later on, when it will be impossible to find anyone so vile, anyone so abandoned, anyone so like yourself, as to deny that I am justified in the act. So long as there is anyone left to plead for you, you shall live ”

“ In extreme cases the private man has the same duty. In the colonies and dependencies of England the exercise of this terrible responsibility has been sometimes preceded by a solemn proclamation of "Martial Law." This proclamation does not, strictly speaking, make any alteration in the rights and duties which each magistrate and each citizen had before, [59] but it calls attention to the fact that a state of war exists with all the extraordinary obligations which such condition implies ”

“ The other perceives that death has not been established by Heaven as a punishment, but that it is either a debt due to nature, or a haven of rest from toils and troubles; and so wise men never meet it with reluctance, and brave men often seek it of their own will. But chains, and chains to be worn for ever, are truly a device framed for the exemplary punishment of heinous crimes. He adds a heavy penalty on the townships in which they are to be confined, if any of the prisoners escapes from his bonds ”

“ These Gallic envoys were introduced to Gabinius by a certain freedman named Umbrenus, and Gabinius and the rest conceived the wild idea of associating the Allobroges in the conspiracy and inducing them to supply Catiline with cavalry for the invasion of Italy. The Gauls at first listened with sympathy; but on further consideration they reflected that they might gain more by betraying their tempters to the government than by engaging seriously in so desperate a cause. They accordingly took counsel with Fabius Sanga, the patron of their tribe, who at once gave notice to Cicero. ”

“ In presence of their egregious folly Cicero may well have exulted that Catiline was no longer at hand to be their guide, and it is not surprising that he should have been tempted to magnify the sagacity of the leader whom they had lost in comparison with the eptitude of those who remained behind. "Catiline," he exclaims, "would never have fixed for our information the season of the Saturnalia, or announced so long beforehand the day of doom and destruction for the commonwealth ”

“ When the question was brought to this point, a sensible man could hardly doubt what answer it was his duty to give. Cæsar's proposal was obviously and notoriously impracticable. What probability was there of such a sentence being carried out? How could the Senate prevent any magistrate from proposing the release of the prisoners? Cicero had later on the opportunity of proving in his own person the futility of such restrictive clauses. ”

“ In the country towns of Italy the conspirators though they might number in their ranks some Italians of good position [7] who had been drawn into the vortex of fashionable life in the capital, would find little favour with the rank and file of the citizens, who were sounder and more industrious than the masses in Rome itself; but they counted that the country-folk would be slow to move, and that they would have time to strike the great blow before a sufficient force could be raised against them. ”

“ It cannot be crushed out by withholding your hand and putting off the day of reckoning. Whatever the nature of the punishment which you select, you must inflict it instantly." [49]
He next proceeds to explain to the senators the alternatives presented to them—"I see that there are two motions before the House, the first that of Decimus Silanus, who proposes that those who have attempted to destroy this commonwealth shall be punished by death, the other that of Caius Cæsar who, while exempting them from death, provides for every other punishment in its most aggravated form. ”