Latin
Lines 1.15-1.25
Greek and Roman Historians, The Conspiracy of Catiline 1.15-25
Not analysed yet
In his Second Speech Against Catiline Cicero identifies six groups among Catiline's supporters:
1.) Wealthy men who are heavily in debt and who could repay their debt by selling land but
are unwilling to do so.
2.) Men who are in debt and see revolution as their road to power.
3.) Veterans of Sulla's army who had been settled in colonies, but have lived beyond their means
and now want new proscriptions from which to recover their fortunes.
4.) Men deep in financial difficulties who seek to evade their problems by joining Catiline.
5.) The criminal element in society.
6.) The dissolute youth of the capital.
Catiline's support was thus not confined to the lower classes, but there is a significant omission from this list -the urban plebs. There is no doubt that the Roman masses did at first support the conspiracy and their omission is capable of explanation. The Second Speech Against Catiline was delivered to a meeting open to the whole populace in which Cicero seeks to present Catiline's supporters in the worst possible light and to urge the lower classes not to join a conspiracy under the leadership of depraved aristocrats whose interest have nothing in common with theirs. He must therefore avoid identifying his audience with those whom he is attacking.
Those efforts to split the urban plebs from the other conspirators were successful. Cicero was able to convince his listeners that Catiline's aim was anarchy, but anarchy or the liberation of the slaves was not what they sought. No more was it the temporary alleviation of an economic crisis which would leave its root causes untouched. The prospect of radical social reform offering them a permanent improvement of their position in society might have led them to join Catiline, but this was not --according to Cicero --what they were being promised.