{"agent_id":"cicero","agent_name":"Marcus Tullius Cicero","slug":"the-catilinarian-executions","label":"The Catilinarian executions: was putting Roman citizens to death without trial the salvation of the Republic or its betrayal?","topic":"The Catilinarian executions","question":"Was putting Roman citizens to death without trial the salvation of the Republic or its betrayal?","position":"Five men who had conspired to burn Rome and murder the Senate were executed on the Senate's authority during my consulship. I ordered it. The Republic survived that night because of it, and I have never pretended the decision was someone else's.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"Five men who had conspired to burn Rome and murder the Senate were executed on the Senate's authority during my consulship.","n":[]},{"t":"I ordered it.","n":[]},{"t":"The Republic survived that night because of it, and I have never pretended the decision was someone else's.","n":[1,2,3,4]}]],"texts":"*In Catilinam* I-IV (63 BCE), *Pro Sulla*, *Pro Sestio*, *De Officiis* I.76-78 and the defences scattered through the letters of the exile years. Reception: Clodius's law of 58 BCE drove him into exile precisely on this charge; Sallust's *Bellum Catilinae* preserves Caesar's speech against execution; the modern debate over emergency powers and the *senatus consultum ultimum* runs directly through this case.","works":["*In Catilinam* I-IV (63 BCE), *Pro Sulla*, *Pro Sestio*, *De Officiis* I.76-78 and the defences scattered through the letters of the exile years"],"reception":"Clodius's law of 58 BCE drove him into exile precisely on this charge; Sallust's *Bellum Catilinae* preserves Caesar's speech against execution; the modern debate over emergency powers and the *senatus consultum ultimum* runs directly through this case.","status":"Defended for the rest of my life, at the cost of exile, and defended still. The tension with my own arguments about law is in the texts.","era":"106-43 BCE","discipline":"Rhetoric","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Orations Vol 2","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"I speak, and I always will speak, with my loudest voice, in order that all men may be able to hear me: be present all of you with your minds, ye who are present with your bodies, ye in whose numerous attendance I take great pleasure; give me your attention 1 This refers to the story of Titus Manlins Torquatus, who, in the Latin war (a.u.o.","label":"Orations Vol 2"},{"n":2,"work":"Orations Vol 2","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"Being informed also that a quantity of arms had been provided by Cethegus for the purpose of the conspiracy, he orders Cains Sulpicius, one of the praetors, to search his house, and he did so, and found a great number of swords and daggers ready cleaned and lit for use. He then proceeds to meet the senate in the Temple of Concord, with the ambassadors and conspirators in custody.","label":"Orations Vol 2"},{"n":3,"work":"Orations Vol 4","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"Have you any secret fear that you yourself may appear to have had some connexion with that crime? I will release you from all apprehension; no one will ever believe it; it is not like you to deserve well of the republic; the most illustrious men in the republic are the authors of that exploit; I only say that you are glad it was done; I do not accuse you of having done it.","label":"Orations Vol 4"},{"n":4,"work":"Orations Vol 4","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"The one conduct would have become your dignity, and the other would have been suited to your prudence.\" This, O Marcus Antonius, was at all times my advice both respecting Pompeius and concerning the republic. And if it had prevailed, the republic would still be standing, and you would have perished through your own crimes, and indigence, and infamy. XI. But these are all old stories now.","label":"Orations Vol 4"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"eloquence-and-wisdom","label":"Eloquence and wisdom: was Socrates right to separate philosophy from rhetoric, or was that the ruin of both?"},{"slug":"atticism-and-the-grand-style","label":"Atticism and the grand style: is Ciceronian abundance the height of Latin prose or its corruption?"}]}