The Ancients - The Rise of Cicero

Episode Date: March 25, 2021

Cicero is often considered to be one of the greatest orators of Ancient Rome. But how did he reach prominence in Roman politics? Why are his speeches so well remembered and what makes them extraordinary? Catherine Steel from the University of Glasgow joined Tristan to talk through the ascent of this statesman, lawyer and scholar from the Late Roman Republic.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like The Ancients ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's podcast we are talking about one of the most famous orators from ancient Mediterranean history, Cicero. Now join me to talk through the rise of Cicero in the first century BC, I was delighted to be joined by Professor Catherine Steele from

the University of Glasgow. Catherine is a leading expert on Cicero on Roman oratory at this moment in ancient history. So without further ado, here's Catherine. Catherine, it is wonderful to have you on the show. Thank you. It's nice to be here. Now, we are talking about Cicero. And Catherine, can we say, I mean, this is the rise of, can we say, one of the most remarkable orators, not just in ancient history, but in the whole of history? I think so. I mean, to say that is obviously to work within a particular Eurocentric view of history. But within that, I think that's right,

partly because what we know of his performance suggests that he was indeed an extraordinary orator. But more than that, I think, is the dominance he has within Roman literature as the orator. As you know, there are no other complete speeches by any orators from the late Republic because Cicero becomes this dominant and canonical form of the genre. And therefore his other speeches, which are copied through antiquity, become school texts and therefore survive the process of transmission after the end of the Roman Empire. And it's that dominance of the textual traditions that mean that he then becomes such a key figure in the Western educational tradition. He becomes the model of

Latin prose. He becomes the author that everybody has to read in school who is learning Latin. And so from that perspective, he then becomes hugely influential as a model of oratory. So it's not just his own achievements, but it's his dominance within the reception of classical literature that I think underscores that claim for his importance as an orator. Because it's very interesting, isn't it, Catherine, in how that Cicero, as we remember him as this giant of Roman oratory at this time in ancient history, but he's not the only great Roman orator at this time. It's just his works are the ones that have really survived and survived the best.

Exactly. Exactly. I mean, even of his own generation, Caesar is supposed to have been an exceptional orator. Now, of course, Caesar was out of Rome for so much of his career that his opportunities to perform were much less extensive, but he was a very fine orator. People such as Caelius Rufus, Cicero's younger contemporary, were also known to be remarkable orators. We have only to read Cicero's history of oratory, Brutus, to get the sense of a very crowded landscape of orators, among which Cicero was one of the preeminent orators, but there were many of his contemporaries who were also very fine performers and very different performers. Now, the time period that we're talking about, let's dive into the background first of all. So this is the first century BC. And Catherine, at this time,

for someone wanting to enter public life in Rome, the importance of communicating, of oratory, it's not essential, but it's become really, really helpful. Yes, that's right. Because of the face-to-face nature of Roman politics, political power at Rome depends on election to public office. So how do you persuade the electorate to vote for you? I mean, interestingly, there isn't very much electoral oratory itself. I mean, candidates, interestingly, don't seem to have canvassed by speaking. But effectiveness as a public speaker is one of the ways in which you get known by the Roman people, and therefore you have a reputation, a visibility that means that they are likely to vote for you when election comes.

So when the election comes, the importance to be able to communicate at this time, but the law courts at this time as well, has that also helped influence the importance of oratory? Yes, I think so. Now, not every Roman politician spoke in the law courts, so there's a degree of specialisation involved. But the law courts as a venue for oratory have been important certainly since the mid-2nd century BC, if not earlier. The reason that we often see a turning point in the mid-2nd century BC is that's the point at which the first standing courts are established, the so-called quaestiones. Prior to that, the people judged the most significant offences in trials in which speeches were delivered. But from 149, we have the quaestio system,

and that system is overhauled by Sulla in the late 80s BC. And following that, there's a lot of forensic activity around a range of offences that can be committed by politicians. So it's not just that the law courts are visible under places where people can show their oratorical skills, but it's also a place in which aspirant politicians can build networks, particularly through defending politicians. Because the other thing about the Roman legal process that's important is that it involves advocacy. You can get somebody else to speak on your behalf. So that's very different from Athens. I mean, we've got a lot of forensic oratory from classical Athens, but those are speeches that are written for people to deliver.

One of the things that's always kind of interesting when you're looking at the Mothman and Olysses forensic oratory is how do they craft the persona of the speaker? Because it's a speech written for somebody else to deliver. But when we have a Ciceronian forensic speech, that is Cicero speaking on behalf of somebody else. And that act of advocating for somebody else, particularly if you're defending them, is itself a very important way of gathering favour and support and building the kinds of networks that can then be cashed out when it comes to building a political career. You mentioned there all those amazing things there with law courts and all that, and you mentioned Cicero, and you also mentioned Greece there. So let's dive into the figure of Cicero now before going on to some of his cases in depth. Because Catherine,

Cicero's background, his education when he's younger, do those speakers further east in Greece and in the Hellenistic world, do they have a profound impact on him when he's growing up? in the Hellenistic world, do they have a profound impact on him when he's growing up? I think so, but I think that is true of any Roman speaker, because oratory was one of the intellectual skills where Rome was very conscious of the opportunities to borrow from the Greek world to develop skills by looking at Greek teaching. And the importance of Greek as a language for rhetorical instruction and for Greek texts to be used as instructional manuals for oratory that was going to be delivered in Latin, it's really striking. And Cicero certainly is part of that world. There is, in fact, when he's in his teens, there are some interesting debates at Rome which are

badly attested and it's not entirely clear what's going on. But part of the issue seems to be should rhetorical instruction even take place in Latin as opposed to Greek. And so Cicero's instruction does seem to have been in Greek, as many of his contemporaries would have studied in Greek. Cicero perhaps was, well, I mean, I think pretty clearly was very immersed in the intellectual worlds of both Rome and Greek literature, but he also studied in the Greek East. In fact, after he delivered his first speeches in Rome, he went to the Eastern Mediterranean, called it Athens, but also spent time on roads studying oratory. It's an interesting moment in his career. Some people, based on some ancient interpretations, think that he went because he was afraid that one of his first speeches,

the defence of Sextus Roscius, had offended Sulla. And so he's sort of leaving Rome because he'd made things a bit hot for himself. But that, I think, is not very likely, really. I mean, if you look at the speech, it's actually in many ways quite a pro-Sulla, or at least a pro-status quo speech. Difficult to see it would really have caused him problems. And it may, in fact, have been as simple as the explanation he gives in Brutus, where he says that at the start of his career, his technique wasn't very good.

And physically, it wasn't very good. He overstrained himself in terms of voice projection and was making himself ill. And he went to the Greek East in order to improve his technique, to learn how to be an orator who could be heard by large crowds, but in ways that didn't actually physically exhaust him. So he spends time in the early 17th BC studying oratory before he comes back to Rome and stands for the first of the elected offices that will lead to membership of the Senate, and that's the Quaestorship, which he holds in 75. So Cicero, he returns to Rome to apply for public office here. What's his next big case in the law court, shall we say?

When does he next really come to prominence? I think that we have to say that's 70 BC, where he prosecutes fairies. And that's a big moment in his career. And it's interesting for a number of reasons, I think. It's interesting partly because it's a prosecution speech. Cicero is very, very reluctant throughout his career to prosecute. He only, in fact, is known to have done it one other time. from the death of Clodius and his unsuccessful defence of Milo and so on. So he does engage in a prosecution, but apart from that, not. So the various cases are really odd from that point of view. And he talks in some of his treatises later on in his career about the ethical problems of being a prosecutor.

This is a difficult thing to do because you are, I mean, if you're successful, you may well end somebody's career. This is a very high stakes activity, and it's a kind of brutal activity that is a bit difficult to reconcile with other aspects of being a member of the elite. So what's going on in 70? Well, the man who prosecutes is obviously Gaius Ferris, and he's being prosecuted because of the things he's alleged to have done as pro preta, as governor of the province of Sicily. And Cicero very much presents the prosecution at times as though it's in fact a defence. It's very interesting the way that throughout those speeches

he uses the language of defending victims and he presents himself as if he's defending the Sicilians against Verri's. He kind of makes it clear that the Sicilians are objects of our pity and compassion, that they have been maltreated by Verrius and that he is stepping up to protect them. He has a personal connection here. I mean, after his priesthood, the province to which he himself is sent is Sicily. So that's just before Verrius' governorship. So he can present that link that he already has with the Sicilians

as one of the reasons why he's got involved. But he also presents Verri's as a danger to the Roman state, not just because of what he did in Sicily, but because Cicero creates this story of an elaborate attempt by Verri's to escape justice through his connections with members of the Roman elite. So we get this story that Cicero tells us about how Beres is trying to delay the trial into the following year, where the magistrates in office will be more sympathetic to him. And one of the contexts that may be going on in relation to the trial and Cicero's tactics, but also why he wanted to get involved, was there seems to have been the perception, at least, of quite a lot of corruption in the Roman courts in the late part

of the 70s BC. This is probably to be connected with changes that Sulla introduced and the way those changes were playing out. The juries are entirely senatorial in the 70s BC, and that is provoking a lot of opposition, or at least so Cicero says. And again, he argues to the jury at the Verrius trial that they have to convict Verrius because it's their last chance to show they're not corrupt. And if they don't convict Verrius, then legislation will be introduced to restrict their privileges, which in fact does happen. So I think Cicero, you could say that in the Verrius case, there's a certain amount of bandwagon jumping, that Cicero sees an opportunity here to capture something in the public mood and to make Verres a scapegoat.

And the fact that it's taking place in the year that Pompey holds his first consulship may not be insignificant because I think there's reasonably good evidence that Pompey presents himself as a bit of a new broom for his own consulship in 70. In the autumn of 71, he gives a famous speech to the Roman people in which he makes clear that he will reverse some of the more unpopular aspects of the sullen res publica as consul. This is a road known Pompey since they were both young men. And I suspect he may have seen an opportunity here and he may have thought, if I prosecute who is very much a sullen figure. Okay, I myself with Pompey I can show myself to be part of this moderate not scary reform movement but nonetheless part of this reform movement and so that may have

been a factor in the decision to prosecute Varys one other thing I think is just possibly part of the picture here we tend to think of Cicero as this great orator, and he was, of course. But if you actually look at his career in the 70s BC, as a forensic orator, and assuming that it's reasonably well documented, which I think probably in terms of his performances it is, it's not taking off very fast. I mean, he's giving a number of civil law speeches about property and so on, not hugely exciting, not usually high profile clients. I don't think he's had a senatorial client yet. I don't think he's had a client who's a member of the Senate before 70. And by this point, he's 36. He's held the priesthood ship. He does go for the egal ship, but he's looking forward to the next stage where actually the competition gets really tight. But if he's looking towards the priesthood ship and then even,

goodness me, the consul ship, how is he going to start making himself look striking? And I think that may be part of this sense that he needs to make a splash. And of course as a defence advocate you can only get the cases you're asked to take on, but you can prosecute anybody. So that by prosecuting Mary there's a sense in which he's creating an opportunity for himself. High risk, if it doesn't work he's got a very powerful enemy. There are all these difficulties about you don't want to be a habitual prosecutor and so on. But seizing this one opportunity, a man who's probably guilty, at least public opinion is quite willing to believe things about Verri, is very much associated with Sulla. You've got this climate in which perhaps

things are shifting slightly. Maybe this is a good moment to seize this opportunity and make something of it and of course again if you look at the variants you can see good heaven cicero did make something of that he never disseminated a version of a speech or a trial anything like the scale of the variants absolutely kathleen as you say doing a prosecution especially against this really high profile figure it's very risky but if it succeeds he'll stand out a mile away in his own ambitions yes high risk high reward but if it comes off as it does there we have cicero making making a quick himself and one of the other nice things about the verine case, of course, is that who was defending Veres? Hortensius. And Hortensius is the man who has dominated Roman oratory for the past 20 years. I mean, it's very difficult to get a finger on why Hortensius was so great an orator. He doesn't seem to have written down his speeches, but he clearly was hugely competent, hugely influential as a performer. Daly was hugely competent, hugely influential as a performer.

And this is Cicero and Hortensius going head to head. Not the first time they've clashed, but going head to head in the courts about a really high profile case. And it's interesting that when Cicero comes again to shape his own career, particularly in his treatise De Brutus, that sense of being in dialogue with Hortensius and there being a moment at which he surpasses Hortensius is very apparent. Just before we dive into this epic clash between Hortensius and Cicero in the law courts, just so we can really picture the scene, Catherine, because we might think of law courts today as very secluded, inside, but in ancient Rome, and for instance, with this prosecution, it was a very different environment. It was indeed. We're in the open air, for starters.

There's no restriction on who can hang around listening and no obligation to stay. So you can drift over, have a listen, go away if they're getting bored. One of the things that could throw an orator was losing his crowd, losing his audience. So this so-called corona, the crown, I mean, there's a term to describe the people who are listening to a forensic speech, but who aren't jurors or court attendants or anything like that. You've got the jury there, you've got a presiding magistrate, but he's not really a judge. He doesn't have a judicial function. He's just kind of administering,

presiding over the events. And sometimes at least it seems as if it can be quite slack. I think there's a speech in which Cicero complains that one juror has basically wandered off during a trial because he had something else to do somewhere else. So in some senses it seems quite a relaxed environment, quite a chaotic or at least an uncontrolled environment, but a place at which orators could perform. And if they were performing well, everybody in the forum would see because they'd see the crowd listening to them. And we also seem to be in a world in which different trials could be going on simultaneously. right so we get to this trial this clash between hortensius and cicero in this prosecution

cicero is this's a big risk, but he knows if he can pull it off, this could be huge for his career. Catherine, what are his tactics? Extraordinary levels of detail, effectively. He overwhelms the jury with evidence. In fact, he says that he does something quite unusual, which is rather than have a long opening speech, he plunges straight into the witness testimony. Now, he says he does this because he's worried about delays. This is part of countering Verri's plot to postpone things, pushing the trial into the end of the year where there are lots of religious festivals which get in the way of days on which courts can sit. So Cicero kind of presents himself as in a desperate hurry as the only way to stop

Verri's plot. But he does seem to have gathered many, many, many witnesses to Verri's activity and that he just overwhelms the jury with this material. I mean, it's a bit difficult to unpack his techniques because, of course, the relationship between the speeches that we have relating to this trial and exactly what happened is a bit difficult to determine. Now all extortion trials at Rome had a second hearing and there's a kind of compulsory adjournment so the fact that we've got the first hearing and the second hearing isn't in itself unusual but of course there is this allegedly gave up after the first hearing and goes into exile at that point. So the general view is that the five speeches of the so-called second hearing of the Vere lines, which is the enormous bit, if you kind of look at a text, that those were never actually delivered, right? That

Vere lines had already gone, and by going, that's taken as an acknowledgement of guilt. And if so, then we have this very interesting point at which the Socrates is nonetheless to publish all this material, to have copies of it disseminated. Why? Well, partly it's about recording his extraordinary achievement. Partly it's, I think, about demonstrating that Verrius was guilty, that this isn't an example of an innocent man being hounded out of Rome, it's a guilty man facing just penalty. And I think partly it's about cementing his reputation,

because this was a great victory and he wants people to know about it. And in terms of the speech's own effectiveness, they do overwhelm by detail. They are comprehensive. They take the whole of Varese's career. It's often said, quite rightly, that Roman law has less of an anxiety about relevance. So there doesn't seem to be a problem that in the course of explaining that Verri's is guilty of extortion in Sicily, he talks about the whole of Verri's career. And that allows him to bring up all sorts of discreditable things about Verri's as a young man, as an adherent of Sulla,

as himself a junior officer with other Roman provincial governors. And then we work through various in Sicily by topic. So there's a whole speech on corn, there's a speech on the administration of law, then we get the speech about the theft of artworks, and then we have the speech which culminates in some grotesque judicial abuses including the execution of men who claim to be Roman citizens. So there's a rising emotional crescendo and the statues speech, the artwork speech is important because a lot of those objects were religious dedications. So this is a religious problem not just a problem about theft. And the fact that Cicero points out these things these real terrible deeds that that Verres has done in the eyes of those Romans perhaps jurors and those

who are watching the trial does this really emphasize that Cicero he was highlighting these to try and rouse up the perhaps anger the emotion of the, to get the crowd behind him in this case? Yes, I think so. And the sense that the jury is likely to be affected by the reactions of the wider crowd is, I think, definitely an element in Roman judicial practice. And there's no sense that there's anything improper about that or that the jurors need to be kept from seeing what public opinion was. And I think the orchestration of emotion is a key factor in what's going on in the Vereins.

And at times these are extraordinarily emotional speeches. We are supposed to feel the fear and the terror and pity. But I think there's also a kind of a real problem for Cicero in terms of his tactics, because Veres was governor of Sicily at the end of the 70s BC. Now, this is the point at which the Spartacus slave revolt is taking place in southern Italy. That was a startling and rather horrifying episode for Rome. And it takes a surprisingly long time for Rome to regain control of the situation. I mean, Roman armies are defeated by Spartacus's forces. So I think one of the cases that could be made on Mary's behalf was he kept Sicily safe.

He prevented the slave revolt from spreading over to Sicily and he protected it militarily. And I think we can see that countering that argument, that whatever Varys has done, he was a competent commander, is quite important in the way that Cicero shakes parts of the speeches, in which he's actually trying to show us that Varys wasn't a competent commander. He relied on other people. He made mistakes. He was corrupt. He let prisoners go and so on and so forth. But that's an interesting point, I think,

for the argument that could have been made. And we have to assume that Hortensius was planning to make that Veres was a competent governor at a time of crisis. It is therefore very interesting, isn't it, Catherine, that rather than this idea that Veres, he had all this negative stuff surrounding him that would have just hurt his case and that Cicero pounced on it, you make a very great point there that actually you have these other events happening at that time and that Hortensius perhaps could have easily won his argument if he'd have put his own thoughts thoughts across these own ideas across with perhaps more emotion to the crowd i guess for it further emphasizes doesn't it how once again how big

a risk take this was by Cicero because of how easily it could have backfired but he does pull it off he does pull it off yes i think that's absolutely right and of course the other thing is i mean Cicero's presentation of Veris's is so effective that Verri's is a byword for a corrupt, monstrous governor. But if you look at other speeches that Cicero gives as defence advocate on the same charge, you can see him explaining away at things that don't look a million miles from what Verri's is supposed to have done. I mean, he defends Fontaius in 69. Unfortunately, the speech is fragmentary on these charges. But you look at it and you think, well, hang on. He's sort of explaining away on the basis of, you know,

provincials lie, you can't believe anything they say in court. You know, they sold these things, they'll, you know, etc, etc. I mean, by this point, the provincial government has been something that the roman courts the christiones have been looking at for what 80 years there are clearly standard ways in which you defend a governor particularly by attacking the witness testimony which of course very often of course almost almost always is not going to be from Roman citizens. That's the nature of the offence. And Cicero was effective at doing that when he had to, if he could defend men on these charges, and he did. So again, that underscores the sense, I think, that it could have gone the other way. And the reason we don't necessarily ask how

innocent was Verri's is precisely because Cicero's oratory is so effective it doesn't really leave open the possibility that he might be innocent absolutely i mean i must admit i hadn't really thought at that point at all until you mentioned like the whole context of of it all and i guess it must be testament to the power of of cicero's prosecution in that case because i mean catherine when when we look at this prosecution and its success in regards to Cicero's career and his rise, how significant really is this? I think it must be quite significant. I mean, it's a bit difficult to tell, partly because we don't have a huge amount of evidence about the early stages of Cicero's career. I mean, we don't start getting his letters really until the late 60s, for example. the late 60s, for example. But I think it probably did play something of a part in making him known and paving the way for his election to the praetorship. The election to the consulship,

I suspect, is by that point, varies as old history. And it's shaped by other factors, who else was standing for election that year, possibly Cicero's relationship with Pompey. I mean, he's certainly done as much as he can with's relationship with Pompey. I mean, he's certainly done as much as he can with the relationship with Pompey. Remember that speech he gives as Praetor in 66, in which he argues for the special command that Pompey gets. So I suspect when we come to think about how did he get elected for the consul, we're looking at a set of factors in 63 that probably weren't directly influenced by 70 by the trial of Verri's but I suspect it did have a role to play in steering Cicero towards success in the Praetorian elections.

Because following the Verri's prosecution I mean Catherine what is the next big step for Cicero? Is it these elections or is there another case before that? I think his forensic career does seem to pick up after the Verri's, possibly related. And so he gets his first senatorial defendant. And there are speeches, some of which survive from the 60s, that demonstrate his skills and so on. I think, though, the next stage, I mean, he holds the leadership. And then I think probably the next stage is the priestship in 66. And during that, the consolidation of the relationship with Pompey by the delivery of the Dan Perry-Ognine Pompeii speech which really cements Cicero as a Pompeian supporter but also

I think importantly as somebody who is making Pompey's ambitions acceptable. I mean that speech is such a carefully balanced argument for Pompey to have this extraordinary command, but also that it is safe to do so, that it's in line with Roman practice, that it may be an innovation, but it is a safe and controllable innovation, and opposition to it, although well-intentioned, is nonetheless misplaced. And I think we can see Cicero doing what he tries to do really throughout his political career, greater or less sense, which is to build consensus. Concordia ordinum, to come up with a political program that can attract enough people that it can marginalize any opponents. And we can see that in Cicero as a politician, the sense that there is never legitimate opposition because what Cicero is pushing forward

should attract the support of all decent people and because of that he can then get moved to this very exclusionary rhetoric against his opponents. You mentioned there one of those other great giants of this period in late Roman republican history Pompey this might be a very obvious question but Pompey he must see Ciceroy, he must see Cicero's rise, he must see Cicero's ability as an orator and think, as you say, make him an ally, get him on side to help forward his own ambitions. Yes. I mean, we know that Pompey and Cicero met as very young men. Cicero, during the social war, served in the army of Pompey's father. And so they presumably met there and they're more or less the same age.

And I think, I mean, I think, yes, we can certainly look at Cicero's own career and see him very carefully watching what Pompey is doing and allying himself with Pompey's program for his own benefit. How far Pompey is in encouraging him, I think, is a bit more difficult to tell. When Pompey is on the point of returning to Rome after his successful campaign, first against the pirates and then against Mithridates, Cicero writes to him and expresses the hope that he can be Lilius to Pompey's Scipio. So he refers back to the famous friendship between Scipio and Lilius in the second century BC, in which Lilius is the wise advisor and Scipio is the great military commander. And so he expresses the hope that he might fulfil a similar role for Pompey.

Pompey's first overt appeal to Cicero, I think, is probably that moment at the end of 60 BC where he and Caesar ask Cicero to join their own alliance, this informal alliance that leads to Caesar's election as consul. They ask Cicero whether he's prepared to help them, and Cicero at that point says no, because he sees in Caesar too much of a threat to the res publica and to its traditions. I mean, the relationship within the two men is very interesting, but at moments of crisis, I mean, it's certainly not the case that Pompey comes through for Cicero, only that Cicero comes through for Pompey. I mean, Cicero rejects that overture at the end of 60. And when in 58, Clodius's tribune starts this campaign to try and

drive Cicero into exile and to hold him responsible for the execution of Roman citizens at trial back in 63, Pompey very, very, very obviously and openly does not support Cicero. And that is a breach that deeply wounded Cicero and takes time to mend, clearly, at a level of personal feeling, even though after Cicero's return, he is very loyal to Pompey at all points throughout the 50s. And, of course, ends up fighting on the Pompeian side during the Civil War. Absolutely. I mean, we've talked then about, you mentioned Caesar,

you mentioned Pompey there. Just before we wrap up, talking about the rise of Cicero and all that, there's one other figure I would like to talk about. Just for a little bit, I think it'd be worthy of a podcast on its own, to be honest. But that's one of Cicero's standout enemies from what I've read.

Catiline. Catherine, who is Catiline? Well, Lucius Sergius Catalina. Catalina, okay. Catalina, yeah. Catiline is absolutely the anglicization of his name yeah he's another Roman politician he's much grander than than Cicero or even Pompey because Catiline is a patrician so he's one of the by this point in the Roman Republic very small

number of families who can trace their lineage back to the pre-Republican period and before Augustus there's no mechanism for making new patricians. And it's a status that descends through the male line. So they gradually dwindle and die out. But Catiline is still around and Caesar's a patrician too. I mean, it's often said to be entirely irrelevant by this point in the Republic. And it's true that the long so-called struggle of the orders has led to plebeian and patrician equality in terms of

access to office and so on. That's all been settled for centuries at this point. But the patrician status does have a certain cachet, I think, in terms of descent and a small number of religious elements too. But Catiline's family haven't been politically distinguished or active or prominent for over 100 years at this point. He's a decayed aristocrat, heavily in debt, follows Sulla, and that's where he seems to get his break, probably benefited financially from the prescriptions, and embarks on a public career. But it just doesn't go terribly well for him.

I mean, he reaches the Prita ship, and then he governs Africa, but he's faced with prosecution on his return, he's heavily in debt, and he just doesn't quite seem to be able to get the support that he needs to be elected. He's just too dangerous. So he's one of the people, one of the other serious candidates

for the consulship in 63. We know a bit about the campaign. I mean, very early on, Cicero, because the elections of 62 were held in the summer of 64 and campaigning seems to start the year before. So as early as 65, Cicero is surveying the field and he names seven people at that point, I think six plus himself as potential candidates.

Most of them are non-entities, but the three who emerge is likely to be successful, Cicero himself, a man called Gaius Antonius, who is the uncle of Mark Antony, but obviously he doesn't know that yet, and Catiline. And it's a three-way race. And what seems to happen is that

Catiline just spooks the horses. He's just too dangerous, too rackety a figure. And Cicero wins comfortably and Antonius squeaks in ahead of Catiline. And of course, if Antonius hadn't, then I suspect the Catilinarian conspiracy wouldn't have happened. Cicero and Catiline would have been consuls in 63. And Catiline would have gone off and misgoverned the province, and it would all have settled down. But Catiline isn't elected. And the following year, he stands again. And it's in the course of that campaign that he starts making some of the really frightening policy remarks about debt relief, and about radical social and political reform. And he also, he loses again. And it's in the autumn of that year, following his second defeat for the consulship,

that he seems to have turned to some form of armed uprising. And in the autumn of that year, goes off to join forces in Etruria and is defeated in battle in 62. And it's possible to look at him and think, well, what on earth did he think he was going to do? But of course, Sulla had led an armed uprising, which we don't think of as an armed uprising, because it worked and he became dictator,

re-established the res publica. And there's another example, actually, immediately after Sulla, a man called Aemilius Lepidus, who seems to have sought by armed uprising to seize or consolidate power. So Moby Catilines wasn't quite such a desperate or pointless venture as it can sometimes seem. But it was clearly a very alarming moment. And what made it more alarming was the revelation that he and his fellow conspirators had been in negotiations with a Gaulish tribe to try and orchestrate simultaneous uprisings. simultaneous uprisings. And it's that revelation, in fact, which leads to the debates in the Senate in early December 63, and the Senate's authorisation of Cicero to oversee the execution of five of the conspirators. I mean, so this seems like another, like, similar to Verri's

in the prosecution. I mean, this is big news. I mean, with Verri's, it's a prosecution, you're attacking someone with this conspiracy. As you say there cicero if he wins and i'm presuming he does win this is the execution of people yes it's an extraordinary moment he's operating within um or under the uh authorization of the so-called senatus consultum ultimum which is an emergency measure and it's been passed beforehand at moments of crisis. And following it, consuls have taken decisive military action to put down internal dissension. So it's used against Gaius Gracchus, and it is used at various other points. And Roman politics in the last century is violent. People die. So to that extent, you know, there's

an emerging tradition of this kind of military repression of political crisis. But it remains very much a grey area in terms of its legality. And that is why Cicero faces a challenge from Codius a few years later, because the Senate may have voted for the execution, but that didn't make it legal. So it's another very high-risk moment. What is worth noting, however, is that the immediate reaction at Rome was one of huge relief. This is the moment at which Cicero is acclaimed as pater patriae, father of the fatherland, a thanksgiving is voted for him. So that sense of immediate relief that Cicero is a saviour figure who has saved the res publica from this very real threat is strong in 63, and then there is a reaction against it.

And how far that is a reaction, or how far is it that different people's voices are being heard, is an interesting question. But nonetheless, there is a swing of public opinion against him, which means that Clodius can be elected as tribune and then can oversee Cicero's exile. Goodness. When you think of it, then, it's quite a jump from passapatrii to exile in a matter of years.

I guess it really emphasises how things can turn on a dime in late Republican Roman political circles very quickly yes yes um not that clodius's ascendancy lasts forever i mean cicero does manage to get back from exile which is in itself fairly unusual among roman politicians though he never manages to regain anything like that transcendent moment of 63 those glorious knowns as he describes it the the knowns being the day of the month on which the key debate was held ah that's really extraordinary and katherine just to finish it off and you mentioned it quite rightly at the start as i mentioned in the introduction we think of him as one of the greatest orators in history but of course that is looking at it in

like the ancient mediterranean viewpoints i mean. But even when we look at it as a world viewpoint, when we consider other figures across the ancient world and in world history, when we're looking at the art of persuasion and all that, you've got to give some credit to Cicero. Oh yes, I mean he's a fantastic writer. I mean immersing yourself in his oratory is a wonderful experience because he just is a sublime user of the genre. It is wonderful stuff, even though one can often despair at his politics or indeed despair at the... Well, Manassi is going a little too strong, but he's very good at making the best possible case out of the materials to hand as i think demosthenes said before all that matters with the speech is delivery delivery delivery yes and cicero got that catherine that was a fantastic chat thank you so much

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