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Avoiding the Responsibility: Cicero and the Suppression of Catiline's Conspiracy
- Syllecta Classica
- University of Iowa, Department of Classics
- Volume 5 (1994)
- pp. 43-51
- 10.1353/syl.1994.0005
- Article
- Additional Information
A. Robinson: Cicero and Catiline's Conspiracy43 Avoiding the Responsibility: Cicero and the Suppression of Catiline's Conspiracy Arthur Robinson In Book 1 1 of the Institutio Oratoria, Quintilian warns that an orator should avoid boasting, as this might offend his listeners (1 1.1.15-16). He notes that Cicero, despite his reputation for boasting, generally speaks of his achievements in his orations only when he must do so, either to help clients who assisted him in suppressing the conspiracy, or to respond to his own critics, and so in these cases he is defending rather than glorifying himself (11.1.17-18). Later Quintilian states, evidendy as an example of how one successful orator tried to avoid the appearance of boasting, that Cicero often speaks of the suppression of the Catilinarian conspiracy, but attributes it to the senate or the gods (11.1.23 EtM. Tullius saepe dicit de oppressa coniuratione Catilinae, sed modo id virtuti senatus, modo providentiae deorum immortalium adsignat).1 It is when he must defend himselffrom his enemies and detractors, Quintilian claims, that the orator takes more credit for these actions (Plerumque contra mímicos atque obtrectatores plus vindicat sibi: erant enim ilia tuenda cum obicerentur). A study of Cicero's orations after 63 B.C., however, indicates that Quintilian is mistaken in this last statement; in fact, the reverse is true. It is precisely when he is defending himself from the attacks of his adversaries— particulary Clodius, Piso, and Antony-that the orator seems most eager to assign responsibility for the suppression of the conspiracy to others. In the orations after his consulship, and especially in those after his exile, Cicero often states or implies that the senate or others were responsible for putting down the conspiracy, and omits or minimizes his own part in this action. No modem 1 Despite Quintilian's statement, Cicero does not directly attribute the suppression of the conspiracy to the gods in the orations after 63 B.C., although he does so indirectly in Pro Sulla 40 and 86. This is somewhat surprising, as he does suggest that the di immortales are largely responsible for the death of Clodius in Pro Milone 83 (cf. 85, 88). 44Syllecta Classica 5 (1994) scholar seems to have discussed in any detail die orator's possible motives for doing this.2 An examination of the passages in which he does so in tiieir contexts indicates that he is not acting out of modesty (hardly a characteristic trait) or a reluctance to appear boastful, as Quintilian seems to believe. Quintilian's admiration for Cicero (or possibly his wish to defend him from detractors of die rhetorician's own time) may have led him to overlook die orator's practical, and far from selfless, reasons for not taking credit for his actions. Cicero usually ascribes the crushing of the conspiracy to others when he is dealing witii, or defending himself from, tiiose who have attacked him for his handling of it~specifically, for die execution without trial of five conspirators on 5 December 63 B.C. He evidently wishes to dissociate himself from this episode and die controversy surrounding it, and to assign the responsibility, in whole or in part, to die outers involved: die senate, Cato, and die équités who supported die senate on that day. The events of die Nones ofDecember in Cicero's consulship are familiar, and need only be reviewed briefly here. The senate, after debating what to do widi die conspirators who were in custody, decreed that tiiey should be put to deadi; according to Sallust (Catilina 53.1; cf. Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum 12.21.1), Cato's speech urging die deatii penalty had been die turning point. Cicero, who had earlier been granted die senatus consultum ultimum, had die sentence carried out immediately. But while many credited him witii having saved die state, outers criticized him, among them die tribune Metellus Nepos, who prevented him from making a speech to die people at die end of his consulship (cf. Epistulae ad Familiares 5.2.7). A few years later, in 58, Clodius used Cicero's part in die execution as a pretext for forcing the...