# The Conspiracy of Catiline 1.6-8

Greek and Roman Historians, The Conspiracy of Catiline, Lines 1.6-1.8. Latin.

Canonical: https://interlinea.aeterna-institute.org/library/latin/greek-and-roman-historians/the-conspiracy-of-catiline/1.6

Free once more to stand as a consular candidate in 63 B.C., he again suffered defeat, this time at the hands of Decimus Junius Silanus and Lucius Licinius Murena. This defeat was conclusive. The highest office in the State, the summit of his political ambitions, was not to be his by constitutional means, and it was the realization of this fact that turned Catiline into an active revolutionary preparing a coup d' etat in Rome and an insurrection in Italy. This was the only path now left open to him.
In his speech In Toga Candida, delivered in the Summer of 64 B.C., Cicero alleges a series of crimes committed over the past two decades. He says that at the time of the Sullan proscriptions Catiline had cut off the head of Marcus Marius Gratidianus and carried it through the streets of Rome, and that he had murdered Quintus Caecilius, Marcus Volumnius and Lucius Tanusius; that he had been discreditably involved with the Vestal Fabia (Cicero could not make much of this affair as Catiline had been acquitted and Fabia was his own sister-in-law); that he had entered into an incestuous marriage with his daughter, whose name, Aurelia Orestilla, is supplied for us by Sallust. In the First Speech Against Catiline he adds the further allegation that after getting rid of his previous wife he committed another crime, the murder of his son.
Two other writers add to his list. The author of the electioneering handbook, commentariolum petitionis, alleges that Catiline did away with his brother-in-law, a knight by the name of Quintus Caecilius, during the proscriptions. Plutarch relates that he killed his own brother and committed incest with his daughter.

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Greek and Roman Historians, The Conspiracy of Catiline. Text: The Latin Library (thelatinlibrary.com), used with permission. Changes: HTML markup removed and the text divided into reading sections by Interlinea.
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