Book 2, letter 21 Part 1 of 2 To Cicero, on Catiline

Book 2, letter 21

Part 1 of 2

To Cicero, on Catiline

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Dear Marcus Tullius Cicero,

It is federal election day here in Australia, and I am neck deep and sinking fast in the quagmire of reading regarding Catiline. The more I read, the less I know, and my ignorance seems vast, without limit. I want to condemn you, I want to condemn Catiline, I want to take sides and to know the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, left and right, republican politics, and plebeian revolution.

But I can't.

I can't make up my mind about Catiline. I can't see where the story really begins, or where it ends. I can't tell the story without feeling like I am telling it the wrong way, or deliberately misguiding myself by including or omitting certain details. I thought that if I started with the Gracchus brothers, one step after the other I could eventually say what I wanted to say about the endless conflict between the Populares and the Optimates, the people's party and the oligarchical party. I tried making a summary...

Tiberius Gracchus – a populare killed by the Senate.

Gaius Gracchus – a populare killed by the Senate.

                     Tiberius & Gaius with their mother, Cornelia

Gaius Memmius – an optimate beaten to death during an election.

Lucius Appuleius Saturninus – a populare stoned to death after the murder of Memmius.

                                           Saturninus

Gaius Marius – a populare, seven times voted Consul, killed himself having lost the final battle against Sulla.

                                        Marius

Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix - an optimate, died of disease after retiring from his dictatorship, having killed 8,000 or so of his political enemies.

                                         Sulla

Lucius Sergius Catilina (Catiline) – a populare killed in battle after his failed attempt at revolution. The conspiracy having been uncovered by you, Cicero.

                                                               Catiline

The discovery of Catiline's body after his failed coup

Titus Annius Milo Papianus – an optimate, killed in a battle against Caesar

Publius Clodius Pulcher– a populare killed by Milo's bodyguards in a street gang fight.

Gnaeus Pompey Magnus – an optimate killed by his own soldiers having lost the war against Caesar.

                                       Pompey

Gaius Julius Caesar – a populare, turned dictator, murdered in the Senate by his fellow Senators.

                                          Julius Caesar

To tell the story of Catiline, is to tell the whole story of the collapse of the Roman Republic, and the story doesn't end with Catiline, but encompasses the rise of Caesar, and of Octavian, and it goes on long after that.

The problem I face lies in the observation that the Catiline conspiracy doesn't seem over, not by a long shot. The societal problems highlighted by the story of this failed revolution are all still present in my own time. Crippling interest rates making debt repayment impossible, resulting in the slavery of whole nations. The chronic overcrowding of cities, the decay of public trust, the overt corruption of politics at all levels, violence in the streets and in the senate house, a people's hero rising to champion the cause of the poor, self serving greed rotting at the heart of everything.

Cicero it seems you were just a cog in an ever turning wheel grinding the bones of all humanity to dust, century after century, and Catiline, your nemesis, was just another sacrifice on the eternal bonfire pile.

You Cicero, were just another sacrifice on that same crematory mountain.

The same conflicts, never ending.

Rich versus poor.

Optimate versus Populare

I hate that it has come to this. Are we all just grains of dust, ground out by this conflict that has no origin and seems to have no solution?

What use are our efforts to understand and to change, when every generation a new Catiline is born, a new Caesar.

A new Cicero?