Catili'na, LUCIUS SERGIUS, the Roman conspirator, was born about the year 108 B.C. of an ancient patrician but impoverished family. His youth was stained with profligacy and crime. He attached himself to the party of Sulla, and revelled in the bloodshed and confusion that disgraced its triumph. His body was capable of enduring any labour or fatigue, and his mind was masterful, resolute, and remorseless. Despite his infamies he was elected prætor in the year 68 B.C., and next year governor of Africa, but was disqualified as a candidate for the consulship in 66 by charges of maladministration in his province. Disappointed thus in his ambition, and burdened with debts, he saw no hope for himself but in the chances of a political revolution, and therefore entered into a conspiracy, including many other young Roman nobles, in morals and circumstances like himself. The plot, however, was revealed to Cicero by Fulvia, mistress of one of the conspirators. Operations were to commence with the assassination of Cicero in the Campus Martius, but the latter was kept aware of every step of the conspiracy, and contrived to frustrate the whole design. In the night of November 6 (63 B.C.), Catiline assembled his confederates, and explained to them a new plan for assassinating Cicero; for bringing up the Tuscan army (which he had seduced from its allegiance), under Manlius, from the encampment at Fesulæ; for setting fire to Rome, and putting to death the hostile senators and citizens. In the course of a few hours, everything was made known to Cicero. Accordingly, when the chosen assassins came to the house of the consul, on pretence of a visit, they were immediately repulsed. Two days later, Catiline with his usual reckless audacity, appeared in the senate, when Cicero—who had received intelligence that the insurrection had already broken out in Etruria—commenced the celebrated invective beginning: Quousque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? ('How long now, Catiline, will you abuse our patience?') The conspirator was confounded, not by the keenness of Cicero's attack, but by the minute knowledge he displayed of the plot. His attempt at a reply was miserable, and was drowned in cries of execration. With curses on his lips, he rushed out of the senate, and escaped from Rome during the night. Catiline and Manlius were now denounced as traitors, and an army under the consul Antonius was sent against them. The conspirators who remained in Rome, of whom the chief were Lentulus and Cethegus, were at once arrested. After a great debate in the senate (December 5), in which Cæsar and Cato took a leading part on opposite sides, the conspirators were condemned to death. The sentence was executed that night in prison. The insurrections in several parts of Italy were meanwhile suppressed; many who had resorted to Catiline's camp in Etruria deserted when they heard what had taken place in Rome, and his intention to proceed into Gaul was frustrated. In the beginning of January he returned by Pistoria (now Pistoja) into Etruria, where he encountered the forces under Antonius, and after a desperate battle in which he fought with more than the courage of despair, he was defeated and slain. Catiline's appearance was in perfect keeping with his character. His face was reckless and defiant in expression, and haggard with a sense of crime; his eyes were wild and bloodshot; his gait restless and unsteady from nightly debauchery and the constant fever of insatiable and disappointed ambition. The Bellum
Catilinarium of Sallust is a masterpiece. For the view that Catilina was a misrepresented democrat, see Beesly's Catiline, Clodius, and Tiberius (1878).