Cicero - Anthony Everitt [62]
for Cato argues with me on rigid and Stoical principles. He says that it is not right for goodwill to be enticed by food. He says that men’s judgments, in the important business of electing men to office, ought not to be corrupted by pleasures. So, if a candidate invites a man to supper, he commits an offense. “Do you,” he asks, “seek to obtain supreme power, supreme authority, and the helm of the Republic, by encouraging men’s sensual appetites, by soothing their minds, by offering them luxuries? Are you seeking employment as a pimp from a band of lecherous young men, or the sovereignty of the world from the Roman people?” What an extraordinary thing to say! For our customs, our way of living, our manners, and the constitution itself reject it. Consider the Spartans, the inventors of that lifestyle and of that sort of language, men who lie down at mealtime on hard oak benches, and the Cretans, none of whom ever lies down at all to eat. Neither of them has preserved their political constitutions or their power better than the Romans, who set aside times for pleasure as well as times for work. One of those nations was destroyed by a single invasion of our army, the other only maintains its discipline and its laws thanks to our imperial protection.
Cato sourly observed: “What a comical Consul we’ve got!” Murena was acquitted.
It was time to deal with Lentulus. With almost incredible stupidity, the conspirators played into Cicero’s hands. It so happened that a delegation from the Allobroges, a Gallic tribe with a grievance, was in Rome. Lentulus thought it would be a good idea to let them into the conspiracy and encourage them to stir up a revolt in Gaul. The Allobroges were uncertain how to react and consulted their patron in Rome, one Fabius Sanga (a forebear of whom had conquered the Allobroges in 121 BC). He brought them at once to Cicero, who instructed them to negotiate with the conspirators.
An elaborate sting was devised. The Allobroges were asked to obtain documentary proof of the conspiracy by persuading the conspirators to write letters to the tribe’s Senate. They did so, also sending along a messenger, a man from Croton, with an unsigned communication for Catilina, whom the Allobroges were invited to visit on their way home. In addition, the messenger was given a word-of-mouth recommendation that Catilina should commit one of the most heinous offenses in the Roman catalog: the freeing of slaves to take up arms against the Republic.
The Allobroges left Rome on the night of December 2 and ran into an ambush, led by the Praetor Caius Pomptinus, which Cicero had laid at the Milvian Bridge across the Tiber just outside the city. Everyone was arrested and brought back to the city. Here, at last, was all the evidence that could be desired. Cicero convened the Senate early the following morning, aptly enough at the Temple of Concord at the foot of the Capitoline Hill.
Most of the day was taken up with hearing the evidence and receiving reports. The man from Croton was given immunity, and he testified. Four Senators took down verbatim notes at the Consul’s request, so that a full and accurate record of the debate would be available. (Cicero arranged for clerks with shorthand skills to attend future sessions.) The house of one of the conspirators, Caius Cornelius Cethegus, was found to be stacked with weapons, spears, armor and a large number of knives and swords. Lentulus, as a senior magistrate, underwent some sort of cross-examination. He resigned his office as Praetor, taking off his purple-bordered toga on the floor of the Senate and putting on other clothes more in keeping with his new situation.
It was a cut-and-dried case. The leading conspirators were handed over to the Praetors to keep them under arrest, although not in chains, and there was a scare when slaves and freedmen of Lentulus and Cethegus came around by back streets to the Praetors’ houses and tried, unsuccessfully, to rescue them. Cicero left the debate briefly to station guards