First catilinarian, question about ista

Latin Learning Latin
1

I finished Henle’s Second Year Latin (lots of Caesar) and began with Henle’s Third Year Latin, which opens with the first Catilinarian oration. The first paragraphs offer no major difficulties, but I wonder a bit about this sentence:

“Fuit, fuit ista quondam in hac re publica virtus, ut viri fortes acrioribus suppliciis civem perniciosum quam acerbissimum hostem coercerent”

Why ‘ista’ and not simply ‘illa’? Isn’t often some kind of contempt implied in the use of iste/ista/ istud, as in ‘quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet?’. And surely this ‘virtus’ is seen as something positive by Cicero.

2

Iste isn’t always purely contemptuous. It’s simply the demonstrative of the second person.

Cicero has just used illa in the preceding sentence; perhaps he wants variety.

Also, I think, he’s holding up examples of the old-fashioned “virtue” of political murder–an irony that seems to be lost on Cicero as he denounces Catiline for plotting to murder the leaders of the Roman republic–as a reproach to the Senate for not acting promptly to kill Catiline. Although Catiline is the primary addressee of this passage, perhaps ista is aimed at the rest of the Senate.