Cicero

In the same year as Verres' trial, Cicero had been elected aedile at the youngest age it was legally permissible. He followed up this success by winning the greatest number of votes among the candidates for the eight praetorships for the year 66. During his praetorship he served as the presiding judge for the extortion court where he had prosecuted Verres. Cicero also showed himself to be a supporter of Pompey (the son of his commanding officer in the Social War) by his speech in favour of the law introduced by one of the tribunes, Gaius Manilius, transferring the command of the war against Mithridates to Pompey.

Although it was usual for a praetor to take up a foreign posting, a propraetorship, as governor on finishing his term of office, Cicero declined the opportunity in order to concentrate his efforts on gaining the consulship. He stood in 64, the earliest year in which he was eligible. Of the other candidates, the most dangerous for his chances were Gaius Antonius Hybrida and Lucius Sergius Catilina. Cicero and Antonius were elected.

The second and first centuries BC saw a shift in rural land holding from small estates of a size sufficient to support a landowner capable of military service and his household in an idealised simple lifestyle to enormous estates (latifundia) owned by city-dwellers and worked by chain gangs of slaves. This meant increasing levels of rural poverty, as the small landowners were unable to compete with the large estates, and a drift to the cities, and Rome in particular, with a corresponding increase in urban poverty as well. Many of the latifundia had been built up by rich and influential people quietly taking over state land. Not surprisingly there were frequent calls for the redistribution of state land. This tied in with another problem. Marius had reorganised the army at the end of the second century BC, transforming the soldiers from a militia who would serve their time and then go back to their farms to a professional force dependent on their general being able to arrange a grant of land for them to retire on.

Just before the beginning of Cicero's consulship, one of the new tribunes of the plebs, Publius Servilius Rullus, proposed the establishment of a commission of ten men holding office for five years who would have complete control of state revenues and would be able to enquire into the legality of land holdings and distribute past and future conquests (the land of the conquered became state land) through, if necessary, compulsory purchase and re-sale. Cicero's first speeches as consul were against this proposal.

Another remedy often proposed for social ills was taken up by Catilina, who was standing again for election as consul: the cancellation of debts. Catilina had a certain amount of support from those who had been dispossessed or proscribed under Sulla, and from some of Sulla's veterans who had not adjusted well to civilian life. Although they came to Rome to vote for Catilina in the elections, he was again defeated after Cicero reported some of Catilina's more rabble-rousing speeches to the Senate and then started ostentatiously wearing a breastplate to the forum as a security measure against possible assassination attempts by Catilina or his followers.

Catilina's supporters then started gathering an army in Etruria under Gaius Manlius. At a midnight meeting at Cicero's house, Crassus [www.suite101.com/article.cfm/18302/104269] brought some anonymous letters he had received warning him and others to get out of Rome to avoid a forthcoming massacre. Cicero called a dawn meeting of the Senate where he ordered the addressees of the letters to read out the contents. The same meeting also heard reports of the rising in Etruria under Gaius Manlius and in other parts of Italy. Forces were dispatched to take care of the uprisings, but so far there was no evidence to link Catilina with them. The Senate passed a decree ordering the consuls to see that the state came to no harm (the senatus consultum ultimum basically the declaration of a state of emergency).

Cicero's colleague, Antonius, was sent to oversee operations outside Rome, while Cicero remained stationed inside the city. There was, in fact, an assassination attempt against Cicero by two of Catilina's followers, but Cicero was warned by Fulvia, the mistress of Quintus Curius, one of Catilina's followers who was a double agent working for Cicero. When the would-be assassins came to Cicero's house under the pretext of making an early morning call they found the house barred against them.

Cicero called a meeting of the Senate, and delivered the first of his speeches against Catilina. None of the Senators would sit anywhere near Catilina, who decided to join Manlius in Etruria. He left Cornelius Lentulus, one of the praetors, in charge of his supporters in Rome.

Previous

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

Next