Catiline and the "Concordia Ordinum" - Historia Antigua

Classical Association of Canada 

Catiline and the "Concordia Ordinum" 

Author(s): E. D. Eagle 

Source: Phoenix, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Spring, 1949), pp. 15-30 

Published by: Classical Association of Canada 

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CATILINE AND THE CONCORDIA ORDINUM 

E. D. EAGLE 

ANYONE who attempts to investigate political life in ancient Rome 

is faced with a thorny problem at the very outset. Were there or were 

there not in ancient Rome political parties of the modern national type? 

Scholars of the nineteenth and early twentieth century assumed without 

question that there were. But the recent trend has been to affirm that 

Roman politics amounted to nothing more than "a nexus of personal 

obligations" and many scholars adhere to this position.' It is the purpose 

of this investigation to consider the year 63 B.C., the year in which 

Cicero scored his greatest political triumphs, with this problem in mind. 

The period has been examined before, and with most success by John 

and Hardy.2 But the currents and cross-currents of political strife are 

so numerous and intermingled that no account has as yet succeeded 

in giving a definitive interpretation of the events of the year. Two of 

the most interesting phenomena are the conspiracy of Catiline and the 

creation of unity between the financial interests and the governing 

oligarchy (the concordia ordinum). The major concern of this study is 

to determine the relationship of these phenomena to each other and to 

the political situation. 

It is advisable at the outset to understand clearly what constitutes 

a modern national political party. Such parties may be regarded from 

several points of view. If attention is fastened on their organization, 

they appear as elaborate machines, with a hierarchy of officers, with 

conventions and caucuses, with a programme and a slate of candidates 

for election. In modern states, where there is manhood suffrage and 

representative government, some such organization is needed to reduce 

the multifarious interests of individuals and groups to a manageable 

number. The size of modern states makes it impossible for them to 

operate on the town hall principle. If the membership of a modern 

political party is examined, however, it will be found to consist mainly 

of a number of groups that consider their major interests to be identical. 

These groups usually have an economic or socio-economic basis, although 

regionalism, race, and religion play important roles.3 Moreover, usually 

'Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution (Oxford, 1939), 10, n. 3. This conception 

originated with M. Gelzer in his monumental work Die Nobilitat der romischen Republik 

(Berlin, 1912). See also Hermann Strasburger, Concordia Ordinum (Leipzig, 1931) and 

J. M. Cobban, Senate and Provinces, 78-49 B.C. (Cambridge, 1935). 

2Constantin John, Die Entstehungsgeschichte der Catilinarischen Verschworung 

(Leipzig, 1876); E. G. Hardy, The Catilinarian Conspiracy in its Context: A Restudy 

of the Evidence (Oxford, 1924). 

3T. W. Cousens, Politics and Political Organizations in America (New York, 1942), 

19-22; A. L. Lowell, The Government of England (New York, 1912), vol. 2, 123 ff. 

15

16 THE PHOENIX 

one or two groups control the policy and action of the party, while 

the subordinate groups render support, believing that their best interests 

are served by serving the best interest of the controlling group or groups. 

Mutual self-interest is the guiding principle throughout. Both these 

aspects of the modern political parties, structure and membership, need 

to be kept in mind in evaluating the nature of ancient political life. 

The two political parties assumed to be operating in the last century 

of the Roman Republic (133-27 B.c.) were the populares (the people's 

party) and the optimates (the party of the gentry). Gelzer, however, 

in his study of Roman political life, demonstrated that during the period 

of the republic the election of officials depended entirely on the personal 

ties between the candidate and his supporters.4 To begin with, the 

candidate had to be a member of the richest propertied class. And 

within that class, preference was always given to those whose ancestors 

had held the consulship or its equivalent. In fact, the highest offices 

were regarded as the special preserve of the nobiles, those whose ancestors 

had held the highest offices. Not only were all citizens below the 

required property qualification ineligible for office, but they were also 

circumscribed in the candidates they could support: they had to vote 

for those aristocrats to whom they were bound by obligations of various 

kinds or for candidates whom their aristocratic patrons preferred. Even 

within the aristocracy, preference was dictated by ties of blood, marriage, 

friendship, gratitude, and the like. Here Mfiinzer supplemented the 

work of Gelzer by examining the ties of kinship between members of 

the aristocracy.5 He discovered factions within the ruling class, but 

their struggles with each other, in his view, were simply the result of 

one or other of the kinship groups striving for dominance. On the 

basis of the findings of Gelzer and Miinzer, Strasburger flatly asserted 

that political parties of the modern national kind did not exist in ancient 

Rome, and that terms such as populares and optimates were merely 

political catchwords, employed with little real significance by political 

opponents.6 

The work of Gelzer and Mtinzer is unquestionably of fundamental 

importance, and one must agree with Strasburger, too, up to a point. 

Rome did not have national political machines with officers, conventions, 

party programmes, and slates of candidates. A Roman election was 

really a city election and the better modern parallel would be the local 

political machines found in some modern cities.7 But that still leaves 

unsettled the matter of personnel. Were Roman political combinations 

mere aggregations of individuals or did groups work together for a 

4Gelzer, Die Nobilitdt d. r. R.; see especially the summaries on pages 42 and 115f. 

5Friedrich Miinzer, Romische Adelsparteien und Adelsfamilien (Stuttgart, 1920). 

6Strasburger, Concordia Ordinum, Iv. Cf. Syme, The Roman Revolution, 16, n. 2 

and Cobban, Senate and Provinces, 8f. 

7See F. B. Marsh, History of the Roman World 146-30 B.C. (London, 1935), 21 ff.; 

370-77.

CATILINE AND THE CONCORDIA ORDINUM 17 

common end? And further, was there no real content to the terms 

populares and optimates? 

It has been mentioned above that, according to Miinzer, cliques 

formed among the nobiles from time to time, and that often one clique, 

whose members were usually related by marriage or birth, would dominate 

the others for a considerable period. Factio is the Latin term for 

such a clique and among the Romans it had a derogatory connotation.8 

Syme calls it a "gang," but a very convenient term might be borrowed 

from Canadian history and applied with more accuracy to the Roman 

scene than to the Canadian-"the Family Compact."' Sulla, in his 

reconstruction of Roman life, placed such a group in control, basing it 

on the Caecilii Metelli.o0 This Family Compact was mainly concerned 

with getting its relations and friends elected to the consulship. That 

office gave great power at the time, a dominant place in the senate 

afterwards, and, in addition, the governorship of a province, by which 

the ex-consul could recoup his own fortunes and hand out patronage 

to his friends and relatives." The office of pontifex maximus, however, 

and the position of princeps senatus were also coveted for the prestige 

and important political influence connected with them. The Family 

Compact was naturally reactionary because it could keep its supremacy 

only by maintaining the status quo. In consequence it opposed all change; 

it vigorously and with much success contested every consular election; 

it fought the granting of extraordinary power to anyone; and it was 

content to exploit the Roman Empire as it was. But, although kinship, 

friendship, and other ties gave it cohesion, underlying these was self- 

interest. The dominant members, moreover, were of one social and 

economic class-land-owning aristocracy-that regarded rule and the 

rewards of rule as its birthright. Those of inferior status who were 

linked with the dominant members by ties of obligation also had their 

own interest at heart in defending the interest of their patrons. That 

is to say, the membership consisted of interest groups, one of which 

8Cicero applies the term factio to a group of people, called optimates, who control 

the commonwealth by reason of wealth, birth, or some kind of power (De Re Publica, 

in. 13, 23; cf. I. 45, 69). Both Julius Caesar and Augustus used the term to describe 

their enemies (De Bello Civili, I. 22, 5 and Monumentum Ancyranum, I. 2). 

9This term was applied to the local oligarchy that joined the lieutenant-governor 

in ruling Upper Canada in the period 1800-41. Though not actually linked by ties 

of blood or marriage, it formed a close-knit clique that managed political and economic 

life to its own best advantage. See W. S. Wallace, The Family Compact (Toronto and 

Glasgow, 1920), 1-7. 

s0Syme, The Roman Revolution, 20-2 and genealogical tables at end. Q. Metellus 

Pius was consul in 80 B.c. and pontifex maximus down to 63 B.c. The other consul in 

80 B.c., the dictator Sulla, was married to a Metella, as were the consuls of 79 B.c., 

P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus and Appius Claudius Pulcher. Catulus, consul in 78 B.c., 

Hortensius, consul in 69 B.c., the Licinii Luculli and Cato likewise, were connected by 

kinship with each other and with the Metelli. In 69 B.c. one Metellus was consul, one 

praetor, and one governor in Sicily. That the Metelli, like the Republican party of 

the United States, had the elephant for their heraldic badge is pure.coincidence. 

"For a complete account of the possibilities for graft see R. O. Jolliffe, Phases of 

Corruption in Roman Administration in the Last Half-Century of the Roman Republic 

(Menasha, 1919).


united and led the others. This Roman Family Compact had, therefore, 

much in common with the modern political party, and the term optimates 

may be used to designate it if the considerations adduced above are 

kept in mind. 

By no means all the nobiles and certainly not all those eligible for 

office were connected with the Family Compact. To an "outsider" two 

courses of action were open: he might court the favour of the dominant 

clique, or he could try to build up a clique of his own to supplant the 

one in power. The latter course was followed by Pompey, Crassus, and 

Caesar, although not with complete consistency by Pompey. 

The careers of Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar demonstrate a very 

well-defined trend. In 70 B.C. Pompey and Crassus revived the censorship, 

one function of which was to let state contracts, so lucrative for 

the financial section of the equestrian class, the tax-farmers (publicani).12 

They also revised the composition of the juries in the courts dealing 

with provincial extortion and other crimes-again a favour to the 

equestrian class. Then, in 67 B.c., Pompey was given an extraordinary 

command to clear the seas of pirates, the main beneficiary being the 

equestrian class with its Eastern interests. And in 66 B.C. Pompey 

took over the Eastern War from Lucullus, a member of the Family 

Compact who had affronted the publicani.'3 In his Eastern campaigns 

Pompey showed himself the first outstanding Roman imperialist, organizing 

the new areas in the way best suited for exploitation by the 

publicani.14 While Pompey was winning prestige and popularity by his 

military prowess, Crassus was making friends in politics, in the law 

courts, and by judicious use of his money.'5 He had the means and the 

inclination to help those who were the victims of political, judicial, or 

financial misfortune.'6 His friends could borrow money without interest, 

although they had to be prompt in repayment." He championed the 

Transpadani in their plea for Roman citizenship."8 For a time (66 B.C.- 

63 B.C.) he seems to have tried to supplant Pompey in the affections 

of the publicani, but he was later persuaded by circumstances and by 

Caesar to abandon this dangerous course of action and to work with 

Pompey in their common interest.19 Caesar himself played a canny 

12A. H. J. Greenidge, Roman Public Life (London, 1901), 229 ff. 

13Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 9 (Cambridge, 1932), 340 f.; 346; 348 f. 

14Tenney Frank, Roman Imperialism (New York, 1929), 323 f. The whole chapter 

(313 ff.) is worth attention for the picture it gives of the activities of Pompey and the 

business interests. 

15Plutarch, Crassus, 7. 

16Such people were called calamitosi or naufragi. Examples are Autronius and 

P. Sulla (Cicero. Pro Sulla, 1. 1; 13. 36 and 38; 32. 91); the children of the proscribed 

(Velleius Paterculus, II. 28); C. Curtius (Cicero, Ad Familiares, xiix. 5. 2); see also 

Pro Sex. Roscio, 50. 147; fragment vi of In Clodium et Curionem in Scholia Bobiensia, 

edited by Hildebrandt (Leipzig, 1907), 22; Pro Sulla, 14. 41; Philippic xii. 8. 19. 

17Plutarch, Crassus, 3. 

18Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 9, 481. 

"9Hardy, The Catilinarian Conspiracy, discusses the attempts made by Crassus to 

outdo Pompey in power and prestige, but believes this ended before the tribunician 

elections in 63 B.C. (see notes 50 and 57).


game. He made at least one attempt before 63 B.C. to identify himself 

with Pompey that he might thereby identify the interests of Pompey's 

supporters with himself.20 At the same time he worked along with 

Crassus, making use of his influence and money as the occasion demanded.21 

He, too, showed active sympathy for victims of misfortune; 

he attached the remnants of the old Marian faction to his cause; he 

won friends in the Italian municipalities, among the Transpadani, and 

in the western provinces; Balbus, the wealthy equestrian business man 

from Spain, became his most ardent friend and adviser.22 It should be 

emphasized that the non-aristocratic supporters of Caesar were not 

riff-raff but members of the equestrian class, i.e. men of wealth and 

property.23 

We see, therefore, that in this period Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar 

were playing up to those elements in Rome, Italy, and the provinces 

that were usually at odds with the optimates. The publicani (the 

financiers) welcomed action that would benefit their tax-gathering and 

money-lending operations, but, given that, they were quite content to 

let the Family Compact handle politics. Certainly they had no interest 

in a revolutionary upheaval that might endanger the very existence of 

their financial operations. In the political struggle, therefore, they were 

a very unstable element.24 A number of nobiles or potential nobiles who 

had suffered political, judicial, or financial misfortune wanted to break 

the power of the optimates. Then there were wealthy and distinguished 

men in the Italian towns who had not been able to get into political 

life, or who wanted a government interested in opening up avenues for 

trade. Similarly, there were in the provinces men of equestrian census 

and commercial interests who wanted a group in control which would 

be willing and able to improve the conditions for commerce in the 

Mediterranean. So, if there was no party of populares at this time, 

there were numerous groups with a common hatred for the Family 

Compact that could be used by a clever man to create a party capable 

of destroying the ruling clique, with important consequences for the 

economic, social, and political conditions of Italy and the Mediterranean 

area. The period prior to 63 B.C. saw Crassus and Caesar trying to 

win the support of these groups. Ultimately, when Crassus was killed 

at Carrhae and Pompey was taken over in desperation by the optimates 

to destroy Caesar, Caesar was able to unite these various groups under 

20He spoke in favour of the Gabinian law (Plutarch, Pompeius, 25). 

21The sources constantly associate the names of Caesar and Crassus from 66 B.C. 

to Crassus' death in 53 B.c. It was only Crassus' money that enabled Caesar to pacify 

his creditors in 61 B.C. (Plutarch, Caesar, 11). 

22Cicero, Pro Rege Deiotaro, 14. 40; Syme, The Roman Revolution, 65, 72, 74 ff., 

79 f., 82, 86 f., 89-94. 

23The charge of obscure origin simply meant lack of senatorial rank. See Ronald 

Syme, "Caesar, the Senate and Italy," (British School at Rome, Papers, 14, 1938, 12 ff.). 

24A good description of the fluctuating role of the equestrian class in politics is 

found in Greenidge, Roman Public Life, 333 f.


his banner.25 This Caesarian party was revolutionary in that it wished 

to supplant the ruling clique; it was progressive in that its actions 

ultimately made possible social, economic, and political changes that 

brought life in the Mediterranean area to a higher social and economic 

plane than had ever been reached before. The groups of aristocrats 

with which Caesar surrounded himself were little more than the instruments 

needed in the political struggle. The significant elements usually 

stayed in the background, although history has recorded the continual 

advice and services of so capable a business man as Balbus. But in 

and around 63 B.C. the anti-optimate elements were not as yet knit, as 

they were later, into a united party. 

In discussing the events of 63 B.C., therefore, one must first of all 

reckon with a well-organized, dominant clique-the Family Compact, 

or optimates. Opposed'to it was a number of disunited, opposition 

groups, varying in their antipathy to the optimates. There were the 

tax-farmers, an unstable group. There were men of wealth and property 

in Italy and the provinces, many of them interested primarily in trade, 

whose hatred of the Family Compact was more deep-rooted and permanent. 

There were many hard-pressed aristocrats whose personal 

aspirations made them a source of danger to the ruling group. And 

there were numerous other groups, lower down in the social scale, whose 

dissatisfaction could easily be turned to advantage by anyone who 

wished to exploit it. Lastly there were Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar, 

who wanted to lead one or more of these groups to break the power of 

the clique in control and replace it with their own clique.26 

II 

Before dealing with the events of 63 B.C., it is necessary to consider 

the position of Cicero and Catiline in relation to the political groups 

already in existence. For, in some respects, 63 B.C. was the culmination 

of what had gone before. 

By birth Cicero was of the eqestrian order, and, although he disliked 

the depredations of the tax-farmers in the provinces as much as he did 

those of unenlightened aristocratic governors, basically he had the 

interests of the tax-farmers at heart.27 His forensic and political career, 

however, had been under the aegis of certain noble houses. Strasburger 

5The wars between Rome and Parthia may have been caused by commercial 

rivalry for control of the overland trail to China (J. W. Thompson, Economic and Social 

History of the Middle Ages (New York, 1928), 22 ff.). 

26The relative importance of the individual and the group in determining the 

course of history is a highly debatable problem. It is not to be denied that Caesar, 

Pompey, and Crassus had strong personal ambitions and that the course which Roman 

history took from 70 B.C. to 49 B.C. was in large part the product of their respective 

drives for supremacy. But what is often overlooked is that the desires of the groups 

to which these men appealed for support helped to determine the policies and actions 

of these men. If this article seems to over-emphasize this point it is simply to correct 

the balance. There is no intention of minimizing the role of the powerful individuals 

involved. 

27Cicero, Ad Quintum Fratrem, I. 1. 32 ff.


is right in depicting Cicero's attitude. Cicero did not execute a political 

volte-face in 63 B.c. His policy and actions in that year were a logical 

consequence of his ties both with the tax-farmers and with a section of 

the nobility. If some of his pronouncements and actions had been 

"popular" in a limited sense, they had never been revolutionary. And 

to be elected consul, something that had not happened to a man without 

noble ancestors for a generation, it was absolutely essential that both 

tax-farmers and the ruling clique give him enthusiastic support.28 

In his canvass for the consulship in 64 B.C. Cicero relied heavily on 

the advice and personal support of his good friend Atticus.29 Atticus, 

a business man primarily concerned with large loans and real estate, 

had left Rome years before to avoid entanglements in the political 

squabbles of his youth. He had, therefore, been able to maintain 

friendship not only with business people but also with powerful noble 

families, including members of the Family Compact. He was the ideal 

person to give Cicero advice and support. As has been pointed out, 

the importance of Atticus in determining Cicero's policy and success 

has often been overlooked.29 Atticus was with Cicero in Rome in 

64 B.c., and must have been extremely helpful in winning for him the 

backing of the optimates. 

The political situation in 64 B.c., moreover, was in Cicero's favour. 

Intrigue by Crassus and Caesar against Pompey, and doubts about the 

political intentions of all three great leaders, brought the tax-farmers 

and the Family Compact very close together. The tax-farmers had 

succeeded in getting their man Pompey to work on opening up new 

areas for investment, and they feared that schemes which upset the 

organization of the state would interfere with the realization of the 

profits they were expecting. At the moment, therefore, they were 

conservative in outlook. The optimates naturally did not want the 

precedent set by Pompey's extraordinary powers to go any further. 

Thus it was not difficult for Cicero to unite the two groups and win their 

combined support. The fragments of his speech In Toga Candida show 

us how he did this. He attacked two of his competitors, Antonius and 

Catiline, and their backers, Caesar and Crassus, as revolutionaries bent 

on destroying the state.30 As champion of law and order it was a 

simple matter for him to head the polls. He was successful also in 

procuring the defeat of Catiline. Actually, although the fullest harmony 

of the orders-the most powerful sections of the equestrian and senatorial 

classes-was not reached until 63 B.C., Cicero's election was a 

symbol of the existence of that harmony as early as July, 64 B.c.3" 

There was nothing about Catiline prior to 63 B.C. to mark him off 

28Strasburger, Concordia Ordinum, 13 ff. For the combined voting power of the 

two orders see Marsh, History of the Roman World, app. 2. 

29Alice H. Byrne, Titus Pomponius Atticus (Lancaster, Pa., 1920), 1-4; 54 ff. 

3oAsconius, In Orationem in Toga Candida, ed. A. C. Clark (Oxford, 1907), 93; 

cf. 83. 

31Strasburger, Concordia Ordinum, 38. See Cicero, De Lege Agraria, 11. 3 ff.; 

In Pisonem, 3.


from the other aristocrats who were striving to establish themselves 

politically in the face of opposition from the Family Compact, and who 

were being used by Caesar and Crassus as shock troops in their attack 

on the optimates. Cicero at one time had thought of defending him in 

court and of making his canvass for the consulship in partnership with 

Catiline.32 Even after the events of 63 B.C. Cicero was able to say that 

prior to the conspiracy of that year many distinguished and law-abiding 

citizens had seen no harm in associating with Catiline.33 Sallust made 

much of the so-called First Catilinarian Conspiracy in 66-65 B.C., but 

John has put this in its proper perspective.34 It was Autronius and 

Sulla, the consuls-elect unseated on bribery charges, who were to take 

the place of the consuls-elect of the second election; Catiline was merely 

to assist in the assassination of the latter; Crassus and Caesar were the 

men behind the scenes who were using the dissatisfaction of Autronius 

and Sulla to further their own ends. In other words, it was not a 

Catilinarian conspiracy at all. As usual, Catiline was merely a tool in 

the hands of Caesar and Crassus. Bribery and collusion from friendly 

sources procured Catiline's acquittal in the extortion court in 65 B.C. 

In the canvass for the consulship in 64 B.c. Catiline combined with 

Antonius, another down-at-heel aristocrat, in order to defeat Cicero, 

and the pair were backed by Caesar and Crassus.35 Later in 64 B.c., 

when Catiline came before Caesar in the court trying assassins of the 

Sullan regime, he was acquitted although others no less guilty were 

convicted.36 

The long-cherished lust for absolutism accredited to Catiline by 

Sallust has been shown to have been invented in order to provide adequate 

psychological motivation in what was primarily a moral treatise.37 

Perhaps Sallust drew some inspiration from the highly coloured account 

given by Cicero in his Catilinarian orations. One thing Catiline did 

want, and that was the consulship.38 He had wanted it in 66 B.C., but 

opposition to his candidature in high circles had persuaded him to give 

up the idea. He ran in 64 B.C. and again in 63 B.C. When he left 

Rome on November 8, 63 B.c., his first act was to assume the insignia 

of consul.39 To understand this persistent personal desire, one must 

remember that the consulship gave not only financial but also social 

and political rewards. It is true that even before the elections in 64 B.C. 

Catiline was in straitened circumstances and that two successive defeats 

would make his creditors disinclined to wait any longer for repayment. 

32Ad Atticum, I. 2. 1. 

33Pro Caelio, 5. 12 ff. 

34Sallust, De Catilinae Coniuratione, 18 f.; John, Die Entstehungsgesch. d. Cat. Verschw6rung, 

706-26. 

uAsconius, In Orationem in Toga Cand., 83, 87 and 90. 

36Asconius, ibid., 91; Dio Cassius, xxxvii. 10. 

37John, Die Entstehungsgesch. d. Cat. Verschwbrung, 808. 

38Ibid., 714. 

39Dio Cassius xxxvin. 33; Sallust, De Catilinae Coniuratione, 36.


Like all aristocrats who had land but little cash, he needed the consulship 

and the provincial command that would follow, to rehabilitate his 

finances.40 But he was by birth one of the nobiles and he considered 

it his birthright to occupy high office and to become an influential 

senator.4' Moreover, his was a nobilitas that needed refurbishing. No 

one in his family had held high office since his great-grandfather, M. 

Sergius Silus, had reached the praetorship in 197 B.C.42 Not only his 

own honour but that of his family was at stake. The affront he had 

received from the Family Compact and his defeat in 64 B.C. by Cicero, 

a man whose ancestors had never held office, served to embitter him 

against both the optimates and Cicero and to make him resolve to carry 

on and try to reach the consulship, come what might. But, although 

he might differ from his fellow-aristocrats in the intensity of his desire 

to become consul, the reasons for that desire were the same in his case 

as in theirs. 

Prior to 63 B.c., therefore, Catiline was merely a minor figure in 

political life, exerting himself to the utmost to achieve the consulship 

and receiving support from Caesar and Crassus. Cicero, as much from 

personal necessity as from political conviction, was engaged in activity 

likely to unite the publicani and the optimates in a common front against 

all disturbers of the peace, whether they were unimportant individuals 

like Catiline or major figures like Caesar and Crassus. 

III 

Cicero began his year as consul by promising to be a consul popularis.43 

Events showed, however, that he put his own construction on 

this term and intended to do what he thought was good for the people 

rather than what they wanted done. The nature of the support he 

had received in his election, as well as his own inclination, demanded 

that he continue to work for harmony between the publicani and the 

optimates. And this meant in actual fact a vigorous campaign against 

every proposal or move made by the not inactive opposition.44 A land 

bill was proposed that would have made its ten commissioners virtual 

rulers of the Roman Empire. Cicero attacked it, partly on this ground 

and partly because Pompey was virtually excluded from the commission.45 

It was proposed to reinstate the children of the proscribed. 

Cicero spoke against this, not because it was unjust, but because it 

40Cicero's brother Quintus described both Antonius and Catiline as egentes (Commentariolum 

Petitionis, 8). Cf. ibid., 9 and Gelzer, Die Nobilitdt d. r. R., 19. 

41Sallust, De Catilinae Coniuratione, 5. See Q. Cicero, Commentariolum Petitionis, 

9, 11 and 12, and Sallust, ibid., 35. 

42P. Willems, Le Senat de la rdpublique romaine (Louvain, 1883), vol. 1, 332, n. 60. 

Gelzer, Die Nobilitdt d. r. R., 28. 

43De Lege Agraria, 11. 3. 6 ff. Cf. I. 7. 23. 

44A discussion of the proposals is to be found in Hardy, The Catilinarian Conspiracy, 

33 ff. 

46De Lege Agraria, 11. 6. 15, 9. 23 f.


might disrupt the commonwealth.46 A prosecution was launched against 

a senator who had participated in the murder of an insurgent tribune 

nearly forty years before. Cicero joined in defending him.4' The only 

real victory for the opposition was the reintroduction of voting procedure 

for pontiffs, altered by Sulla.48 This resulted in the election of 

Caesar as pontifex maximus. Everywhere else Cicero carried the day 

and his defence was not a passive one. On every occasion he took the 

opportunity of branding his opponents as revolutionaries.49 He and his 

coalition succeeded in thwarting the troublemakers on all major issues. 

Even before the election campaign in July, 63 B.c., it must have 

become apparent to Caesar and Crassus that their attack was too 

narrowly based and that it had been a mistake to give Cicero any 

opportunity to swing Pompey's following, primarily the publicani, 

behind his campaign to maintain the status quo. In other words, they 

must have seen the necessity of revising their plans in order to have 

Pompey and his followers on their side. Hardy is of the opinion that 

the return of Metellus Nepos from Pompey's camp to stand for tribune 

gave them an opportunity to lay the basis for the First Triumvirate.50 

This is quite probable. At any rate, Metellus Nepos was elected, and 

one of his first acts as tribune was to launch an attack on Cicero. In 

62 B.c. he and Caesar fought side by side against the optimates. 

The decision of Caesar and Crassus to revise their strategy in order 

to win Pompey and the financiers to their side would not at first necessitate 

the withdrawal of support from Catiline when he stood for the 

consulship in July, 63 B.c. They had certainly intended to continue to 

use him, as Caesar had indicated by allowing his acquittal the year 

before. It would have been valuable, too, for them to have had a 

friendly consul in 62 B.c. But the measure of their support would 

depend on the extent to which he was willing to work in the interests 

of their new strategy. 

The groups on which Catiline drew for support in his canvass, 

however, would make it seem likely that he was not prepared to follow 

the new strategy but was inclined to take an independent course. His 

supporters were predominantly anti-optimate in nature: the descendants 

of the proscribed, bankrupt aristocrats, a band of unprincipled 

and Bohemian young bloods, and, from the rural areas, dispossessed 

farmers and Sullan veterans, who had not found the farms to which 

they had gone sufficiently remunerative.5' But they were the most 

desperate and militant of the anti-optimates. And the developments 

46Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria xx. 1. 85. 

47In the speech Pro C. Rabirio Perduellionis Reo. 

48Dio Cassius, xxxvII. 37. See Hardy, The Catilinarian Conspiracy, 38, n. 2. 

49De Lege Agraria, I. 7. 21, 9. 26, II. 3. 8; Pro C. Rabirio Perduellionis Reo, 1 and 12. 

s0Hardy, The Catilinarian Conspiracy, 61 f.; 105 f.; 108. 

"5Pro Murena, 24. 49. See John, Die Entstehungsgesch. d. Cat. Verschw5rung, 740 ff. 

The most prominent were the calamitosi.


in the closing days of the campaign make it abundantly clear that 

Catiline was pursuing a course not simply independent of Caesar and 

Crassus but absolutely antithetic to their new strategy. When Cato 

threatened him with prosecution, Catiline replied that if a conflagration 

were kindled against him he would extinguish it not with water but 

by pulling the house down.52 In a private harangue to his followers 

he was reported to have said: "No loyal defender of those in distress 

can be found save him who himself is in distress; the injured and distressed 

ought not to trust the promises of those who are unimpaired 

in fortune; therefore, let those who want to replenish their empty 

pockets or to recover what has been taken from them consider my debts, 

my possessions and my daring; that man ought to be least fearful and 

most victimized by fortune who is going to be the leader and standard 

bearer of the victims of misfortune." On the strength of these vague 

but dangerous utterances Cicero was able to get the elections postponed 

for a day or two so that Catiline could be called before the senate to 

clear himself.53 Catiline, however, took advantage of the occasion to 

deliver a manifesto: "There are two bodies in the community, one weak 

with an addled head; the other strong without a head; if the latter 

serves me well, it will not lack a head while I am alive." These remarks 

indicate clearly that Catiline was proclaiming himself as champion of all 

in distress, particularly those in financial difficulty. That in itself was 

enough to alarm the financiers, and the obvious implication that, when 

he became consul, he would engineer a debt cancellation programme put 

them resolutely against him and solidly behind the Family Compact. 

Catiline, of course, was playing right into Cicero's hand. But to 

make absolutely sure that men of wealth would unite with the optimates 

to defeat Catiline, Cicero spread rumours that Catiline was going to 

have him assassinated at the elections and then appeared at the elections 

wearing a breastplate imperfectly concealed under his toga. Catiline 

was defeated. 

Caesar and Crassus could not help but be alarmed when they saw 

Catiline playing an independent and increasingly militant role that 

enabled Cicero to weld the financiers even more solidly to the optimates. 

That, and his inevitable defeat in the elections, would show them that 

he was of no more use to them. Moreover, in flirting with the idea of 

debt cancellation, Catiline irretrievably lost the sympathy and support 

of both Caesar and Crassus. Crassus, as a money-lender and friend 

of money-lenders, could not possibly have any sympathy with it. And 

neither could Caesar. It is true that Cicero at a later date made some 

spiteful remarks about Caesar on the subject, after Caesar had carried 

through a programme of debt adjustment. But Caesar's settlement was 

52For this and the following quotations see Pro Murena, 25. 50 f. 

"5John, Die Entstehungsgesch. d. Cat. Verschwirung, 747; Hardy, The Catilinarian 

Conspiracy, 43 ff.


one acceptable to creditor as well as to debtor, as Caelius, who wanted 

outright cancellation, found to his sorrow.54 As for his indebtedness in 

63 B.c., Caesar had Crassus to back him, and his political career was 

just at the point where a provincial command, with all its opportunities 

for recouping one's fortunes, seemed assured. And, as he was anxious 

for the support of men of wealth, he would have to oppose any plan 

for outright violation of the sanctity of contract. For these reasons 

Caesar and Crassus must have made it quite clear to Catiline that he 

could no longer rely on them for support, financial or political. 

Catiline's feelings after the election are not hard to imagine. He 

could not fail to realize that if events pursued their normal course he 

was ruined-financially, socially, and politically. Two defeats made it 

unlikely that his creditors would wait for him to try another time. 

His hatred of the parvenu, Cicero, and the financiers, who had twice 

prevented him from realizing his destiny as an aristocrat, was at a peak. 

In his now desperate situation he must have viewed with even greater 

disgust than before the new direction being taken by Caesar and Crassus. 

To a man of his calibre a vigorous frontal attack on those responsible 

for his plight would seem the only way out of his difficulties. 

Up to and including the election, therefore, Cicero and his coalition 

were the decisive political element. In the early part of the year the 

concordia ordinum was able to defeat the major aims of the anti-optimates. 

That defeat gave the initial impetus to a cleavage among them. The 

events of the election campaign, where again Cicero and his coalition 

played a dominant role, further developed the cleavage among the 

opposition forces and forced them to travel widely divergent roads. 

Caesar and Crassus revised their strategy and laid long-range plans to 

bring the financiers to their side. Catiline, unable and disinclined to 

follow such a policy, now that the constitutional road to his goal was 

blocked, was obliged to think in terms of desperate and direct action, 

if he was not to sink back forever into oblivion.55 

IV 

The formation of the conspiracy took place after the consular elections 

in July, 63 B.c. and was the direct result of Catiline's defeat in those 

"4Cicero, De Officiis, 11. 84; Caesar, De Bello Civili, iii. 1 and 20 ff.; Suetonius, 

Divus ulius, 42. See discussion in Th. Mommsen, The History of Rome, vol. 5 (London, 

1894), 317 f.; 398-402. 

66A parallel is to be noted in the events in Upper Canada in 1836-7. Unyielding 

resistance to demands for reform, and an election in which almost all the Reformers 

went down to defeat precipitated a crisis. William Lyon Mackenzie and his militant 

friends carried out an armed insurrection. Other Reformers, such as Robert Baldwin 

and Marshall Spring Bidwell, refused to have anything to do with this violent course of 

action (Wallace, The Family Compact, 114 ff.). My attention was drawn to this interesting 

parallel by C. B. Sissons, Professor Emeritus of Ancient History, Victoria College, 

Toronto.


elections.56 The organization of it occupied the interval up to the 

middle of October and the original day for putting it into effect was 

October 28. About ten days before, however, Crassus and other aristocrats 

received anonymous letters informing them of trouble to come. 

These, with the secret information Cicero received and reports of activity 

in Etruria, brought about a declaration of martial law. So, although 

trouble broke out in Etruria, the 28th passed quietly. The original 

plan of the conspiracy, to have been put into effect on that day, was a 

relatively simple one. Manlius and his force of rural malcontents were 

to attack Rome from without while the conspirators within the city 

were murdering Cicero and a few other leading citizens. Catiline was 

to become consul. Nothing more than a short, vigorous palace revolution 

was planned. But the revelations and the consequent declaration 

of martial law disrupted this plan, checking action within the city, if 

not in Etruria. It was not proved who the conspirators were or that 

Catiline was their head, so no steps could be taken against him. It was 

November 6 when the conspirators assembled to reconsider the situation. 

It was at this meeting that arson was added to their programme, and 

that elaborate plans for appealing to the disaffected all over Italy were 

drawn up. In their desperation the conspirators were heading toward 

a general social upheaval. Cicero, who had information of this meeting, 

was able to use the attack that was made on his life in the presence of 

witnesses as corroboration of his statements about the conspiracy. He 

unmasked Catiline and drove him from the city into Etruria, where 

he could do least harm and could be dealt with by the military. It was 

another month, however, before Cicero was able to catch the remaining 

conspirators in treasonous action, to apprehend them, and to put them 

to death. After that it was an easy matter to surround and annihilate 

Catiline and the other rebels by armed force. By his astuteness and 

energy Cicero checked what might have become a very dangerous 

situation. 

John and Hardy are agreed that Caesar and Crassus had no part in 

the conspiracy.57 Certainly, if the foregoing analysis of the position 

adopted by these men is correct, not only would they have had no part 

in it, but Catiline would have been very careful to see that they knew 

56John and Hardy, working independently, have convincingly demonstrated that 

Sallust placed the inception of the conspiracy more than a year too early (see John, 

Die Entstehungsgesch. d. Cat. Verschworung, 754-62; Hardy, 51 f.). For the following 

description of the conspiracy see John, 758, 788-92, 795; Hardy, 53-8, 65, 70-97, 101 f. 

57John, 738, 815 f.; Hardy, 49 f., 82 ff. I cannot agree with E. T. Salmon ("Catiline, 

Crassus, and Caesar," American 7ournal of Philology, 56, 1935, 302-10) that 

Crassus encouraged Catiline to cause social disorder that he might have an army with 

which to face Pompey on his return. That Crassus manoeuvred for a point d'appui 

against Pompey up to the collapse of the Rullan Bill is very likely. But if Crassus 

and Caesar came to terms with Pompey before the election in July 63 the need to 

secure an army no longer existed. This and the view that the conspiracy was not 

organized until after the election makes it difficult to believe that Crassus engaged in 

the dangerous machinations attributed to him by Professor Salmon.


nothing about it. Members of the Family Compact tried to get Cicero 

to include their names but he refused, and it is well known that Crassus 

at least, and probably Caesar too, were instrumental in making the 

existence of the conspiracy known. They did so not only because they 

had to clear themselves of past association with Catiline, but also 

because the conspiracy was inimical to their programme. But less 

prominent people from the anti-optimate groups were involved. The 

leading conspirators were aristocrats forced into a difficult position by 

financial or political reverses.58 There were leading citizens from rural 

municipalities.59 There was the freedman, Umbrenus, a business man 

who had had extensive business dealings in Gaul. Manlius, the Sullan 

settlers, and other elements of rural unrest played an important part. 

However, the predominance of disgruntled aristocrats who were taking 

action primarily to remove their own disabilities, and the absence of 

those who could provide constructive leadership indicate that the 

conspiracy was basically a protest movement, engendered by the success 

of Cicero and his coalition in blocking all attempts to correct longstanding 

abuses. 

One group on which the conspirators may have counted for support 

in their protest movement should be mentioned-aristocrats who had 

incurred debts, but were reluctant to sell their estates to pay off these 

debts.60 They might very well have regarded themselves as misfortune's 

next crop of victims. Their indebtedness was, in large part, the result 

of the continually increasing amounts being spent in pursuit of political 

careers."' Several factors impelled the creditors to call in their loans. 

The prospects of profitable investment in the East were bright.62 On 

the other hand, the political turmoil in Rome had reached a point where 

creditors could not help but be nervous, especially since Cicero had done 

all he could to increase their fears, in order to solidify his concordia 

ordinum. The situation was explosive and, when the news of the 

conspiracy broke, only the resolute action of Considius kept creditors 

from panicking and debtors from taking desperate action.63 Cicero's 

energy and resolution in dealing with the situation contributed immensely 

to keeping this group quiet. 

68E.g. Autronius (see note 16); for Lentulus see Willems, Le Senat, vol. 1, 419 f.; 

Q. Curius, ibid., 418; Cassius, ibid., 461, n. 5. Cicero describes them as naufragi (In 

Catilinam, I. 12. 30, II. 11. 24). 

59Sallust, De Catilinae Coniuratione, 17 and 40. 

60Cicero makes it one of the groups in the conspiracy (In Catilinam, II. 8. 18) but 

Hardy (The Catilinarian Conspiracy, 53) is of the opinion that Cicero was merely trying 

to frighten them into supporting the government. 

61More and more was being spent on elections every year (Marsh, A History of the 

Roman World, 160 f.). The lavish amounts spent by Caesar as aedile are symptomatic 

(Suetonius, Divus 7ulius, 10; Plutarch, Caesar, 5). 

62The winding-up of Pompey's campaign in the East was opening up attractive 

prospects for investment (Cary, History of Rome, 356 f.). The ban on the export 

of gold and silver suggests that capital was moving eastward (Cicero, In Vatinium, 5. 

12; Pro Flacco, 28. 67). 

63He refused to call in either principal or interest, remarking that he traded in 

money, not in the blood of citizens (Valerius Maximus, Iv. 8. 3).


A word of caution is necessary here. Debt was not the cause of 

the conspiracy. It is true that heavy indebtedness made many favour 

drastic action; that it was those in financial distress to whom Catiline 

appealed for support; that among the conspirators themselves debt was 

one of the most urgent disabilities. But the initiation of action came 

from those who had been driven into a tight corner by the success of 

Cicero's efforts to maintain the concordia ordinum. That is to say, the 

economic situation provided the opportunity for rousing support for a 

protest movement, but it was the political situation that actually gave 

the impetus to the creation of the conspiracy. 

The development of the conspiracy can now be described with precision. 

Cicero's campaign to keep the financiers and the Family Compact 

together created a cleavage among the anti-optimates and forced Catiline 

into a position from which he could extricate himself only by strong 

measures. He found a number of those who had supported him in his 

second canvass willing to follow him. Debt and general discontent 

throughout Italy, which the repressive policies of the government had 

considerably augmented, made the occasion seem favourable. Initially, 

the conspiracy aimed merely at substituting an anti-optimate consul, 

Catiline, for the optimate one, Cicero. But, when Cicero was successful 

in rendering that plan impracticable, the conspirators were forced along 

the road to a general social upheaval. The decisive element throughout 

had been Cicero and his temporary alliance of the financiers with the 

optimates.64 

V 

In its dinouement the conspiracy had an effect upon the concordia 

ordinum. Cicero in his Fourth Catilinarian states: "Brought back after 

years of disagreement with this order [the senatorial class] to alliance 

and harmony with it, they [the financiers] have been brought into 

union with you by this day and this affair."66 Strasburger gives content 

to this statement by showing that on this occasion, the fifth of December, 

the equites took up arms and registered as an emergency police force, 

indicating by this overt action their identification with the optimates.66 

Atticus, incidentally, the one man most capable of bridging the gap 

between the two groups, was in command of this force.67 The revelations 

of the conspiracy, therefore, strengthened the concordia ordinumjust 

what Caesar and Crassus had been trying to prevent. The conspiracy 

also placed Crassus and Caesar in a somewhat dangerous position. 

The immediate political effect of the conspiracy, therefore, was to aid 

the optimates. 

64The unknown author of a speech against Cicero puts forward much the same 

thought from a partisan point of view (In Ciceronem Declamatio, 2. 3). 

61In Catilinam, Iv. 7. 15. 

66Concordia Ordinum, 42. 

s6Ad Atticum, II. 1. 7.


The events of 63 B.C., however, were not without value to those 

engaged in ousting the Family Compact. It had been amply demonstrated 

that the publicani and Pompey had to be weaned away from 

the optimate side. This was speedily done, and, when Cicero continued 

his opposition, advantage was taken of the fact that in 63 B.C. he had 

put Roman citizens to death without a trial.68 

In conclusion, it may be said that this investigation has demonstrated 

the necessity for taking social and economic groupings into account if 

the events of 63 B.C. are to be intelligible. It has shown that there 

was one political machine, the optimates or Family Compact, in existence 

and another one, the Caesarian party, in process of formation. The 

year opened with anti-optimates staging an offensive which was met by 

Cicero with a counter-offensive. The success of the latter was made 

possible by the coalition of the financiers and the Family Compact. 

The effect of the counter-offensive was to drive a wedge between those 

who could bide their time and those who could not, and, in consequence, 

a militant faction developed which had recourse to violence. That, in 

turn, strengthened the concordia ordinum and brought Caesar and Crassus 

into jeopardy. But they weathered the storm and took steps to break 

up the coalition. In short, the year 63 B.C. was one of outstanding 

significance in the political history of the late republic. 

6sPlutarch, Pompeius, 46; Cicero, Ad Atticum, I. 17. 8 and 9, 11. 1. 8; Dio Cassius, 

xxxviii. 14. 

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Catiline and the "Concordia Ordinum" - Historia Antigua

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