The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 | Page 8

seen that he wore a
cuirass under his toga, and causing his house to be guarded by the
younger members of his party. The elections, according to Plutarch,
had at least been once postponed from the ordinary time in July, though
this has been denied.[7] At any rate it was not till they had taken place
and Catiline had been once more rejected, that any definite step is
alleged to have been taken by him, such as Cicero could lay hold of to
attack him. On the 20th of October, in the senate, Cicero made a speech
warning the Fathers of the impending danger, and on the 21st called
upon Catiline for an explanation in their presence. But, after all, even
the famous meeting of the 5th of November, in the house of M. Porcius
Læca, betrayed to Cicero by Fulvia, the mistress of Q. Curius, would
not have sufficed as grounds for the denunciation of the first extant
speech against Catiline (7th of November), if it had not been for
something else. For some months past there had been rumours of
risings in various parts of Italy; but by the beginning of November it
was known that C. Manlius (or Mallius) had collected a band of
desperadoes near Fæsulæ, and, having established there a camp on the
27th of October, meant to advance on Rome. Manlius had been a
centurion in Sulla's army, and had received an allotment of confiscated
land in Etruria; but, like others, had failed to prosper. The movement
was one born of discontent with embarrassments which were mostly

brought about by extravagance or incompetence. But the rapidity with
which Manlius was able to gather a formidable force round him seems
to shew that there were genuine grievances also affecting the
agricultural classes in Etruria generally. At any rate there was now no
doubt that a formidable disturbance was brewing; the senate voted that
there was a tumultus, authorized the raising of troops, and named
commanders in the several districts affected. It was complicity in this
rising that Cicero now sought to establish against Catiline and his
partisans in Rome. The report of the meeting in the house of Læca gave
him the pretext for his first step--a fiery denunciation of Catiline in the
senate on the 7th of November. Catiline left Rome, joined the camp of
Manlius, and assumed the ensigns of imperium. That he was allowed
thus to leave the city is a proof that Cicero had as yet no information
enabling him to act at once. It was the right of every citizen to avoid
standing a trial by going into exile. Catiline was now under notice of
prosecution for vis, and when leaving Rome he professed to be going to
Marseilles, which had the ius exilii. But when it was known that he had
stopped short at Fæsulæ, the senate at once declared both him and
Manlius hostes, and authorized the consuls to proceed against them.
The expedition was intrusted to Antonius, in spite of his known
sympathy with Catiline, while Cicero was retained with special powers
to protect the city. The result is too well known to be more than
glanced at here. Catiline's partisans were detected by letters confided to
certain envoys of the Allobroges, which were held to convict them of
the guilt of treason, as instigating Catiline to march on Rome, and the
senate of the Allobroges to assist the invasion by sending cavalry to
Fæsulæ.
[Sidenote: Execution of the conspirators, December, B.C. 63. Its legal
grounds and consequences.]
The decree of the senate, videant consules, etc., had come to be
considered as reviving the full imperium of the consul, and investing
him with the power of life and death over all citizens. Cicero acted on
this (questionable) constitutional doctrine. He endeavoured, indeed, to
shelter himself under the authority of a senatorial vote. But the senate
never had the power to try or condemn a citizen. It could only record its

advice to the consul. The whole legal responsibility for the
condemnation and death of the conspirators, arrested in consequence of
these letters, rested on the consul. To our moral judgment as to Cicero's
conduct it is of primary importance to determine whether or not these
men were guilty: to his legal and constitutional position it matters not at
all. Nor was that point ever raised against him. The whole question
turns on whether the doctrine was true that the senatus consultum
ultimum gave the consul the right of inflicting death upon citizens
without trial, i.e., without appeal to the people, on the analogy of the
dictator seditionis sedandæ causa, thus practically defeating that most
ancient and cherished safeguard of Roman liberty, the ius provocationis.
The precedents were few, and scarcely such as would appeal to popular
approval. The murder