In Catilinam 1.13-14

Latin Learning Latin
1

Cicero is encouraging Catiline to leave Rome:

Num dubitas id me imperante facere quod iam tua sponte faciebas?

(“Do you doubt that I, by commanding, bring about what you were about to do of your own accord?” – i.e. having him leave the city.)

Interrogas me, num in exsilium?

(“You ask me: truly, into exile?” There’s no verb here but this is my guess.)

Non iubeo, sed, si me consulis, suadeo.

(“I do not order it but, if me of a consul? As I am consul?, I urge you.” I don’t get the “si me consulis”.)

After a stream of invective saying that Catiline’s life and reputation in Rome are ruined, and therefore he should not stay:

Cui tu adulescentulo quem corruptelarum inlecebris inretisses non aut ad audaciam ferrum aut ad libidinem facem praetulisti?

I’ve had no end of trouble with this, and I still don’t think I have it remotely right. “Did you not bear before you either the sword Audacity or the torch Lust to the kind of youth whom you had ensnared with the allures of corrupting things?” (this doesn’t seem to fit in with the context. I’ve looked at it throughout the day but it seems that the more I look at it the more confused I get. Another possible interpretation: “Did you not prefer the sword Audacity or the torch Lust to the kind of youth whom you had ensnared with the allures of corrupting things?”

2

Num dubitas id me imperante facere quod iam tua sponte faciebas?

Dubito here means “hesitate.” “Do you hesitate to do what you were already doing of your own accord when I order you to do it?”

Interrogas me, num in exsilium?

The understood verb is eas. “You ask me, should you go into exile?”

Non iubeo, sed, si me consulis, suadeo.

Consulis is here a verb, consulo, “to consult.” “I don’t order you to do it, but if you ask me, I urge you to.” Cicero is making a pun.

Cui tu adulescentulo quem corruptelarum inlecebris inretisses non aut ad audaciam ferrum aut ad libidinem facem praetulisti?

Crudely: “For what young punk, in order to ensnare him with the enticements of corruption [inlecebris corruptelarum], did you not carry/bring weapons for his audacity or a torch [to light the way] for his lust?” or maybe this would be better “. . . did you not lead the way with weapons for his audacity or a torch for his lust?”

Praetulisti would seem to go better with ad libidinem facem than with ad audaciam ferrum (which is why ad libindinem facem is closer to praetulisti). Cicero is turning a phrase, not entirely felicitously, with the alliteration of ferum/facem. Maybe in the stream of vituperation the fact that the whole sentence is somewhat contorted matters less than the catchy sound of the spoken words. The sentence ends with a string of long syllables.

quem corruptelarum inlecebris inretisses – a relative clause of purpose. Again, alliteration: in- . . . in-. Some texts read il- . . . ir- but the alliterative effect seems to validate the older spelling. Then should we read conruptelarum for consistency’s sake?

adulescentulo - the diminutive is contemptuous.

3

Where does “me” come in? “Me … facere” seems like indirect discourse.

Thank you very much, especially for the in-depth treatment of the “cui adulescentulo” sentence. There’s some comfort in knowing that you were stumped by a difficult sentence and that it’s not some embarrassingly slight thing holding you up.

4

Where does “me” come in?

me imperante is an ablative absolute. “Do you hesitate to do what you were already doing of your own accord when I order [you to do it]?”

5

Got it. That’s a deceptively tough sentence.

6

Again, I didn’t have much trouble with sections 15 and 16 so I’ll keep it in the same thread:

Catiline is greeted by no well-wishers in the Senate:

Si hoc post hominum memoriam contigit nemini, vocis exspectas contumeliam, cum sis gravissimo iudicio taciturnitatis oppressus?

(“If this (treatment?) after the memory of man (in human memory?) befell nobody, you wait for the reproach of a voice, when you have (already?) been crushed by the most grave judgment of silence?” I can’t understand how the memory-of-man clause goes with the rest.)

Quid, quod adventu tuo ista subsellia vacuefacta sunt, quod omnes consulares qui tibi persaepe ad caedem constituti fuerunt, simul atque adsedisti, partem istam subselliorum nudam atque inanem reliquerunt, quo tandem animo tibi ferendum putas?

(“What of this, that upon your arrival those benches around you were emptied, that all the former consuls who had been marked for slaughter so often by you, once you sat among them, left that part of the seats near you bare and empty; at last, how do you think it should be borne by your soul?” I’m not sure about this last bit; my commentary calls it the predicate of “quad omnes consulares” but I’m not sure what that means and I have trouble with the word “quo”.)

Why the dative “tibi” of agent instead of the ablative (in “qui tibi constituti fuerunt”)? What kind of form is “constituti fuerunt”? Is that just an alternate passive pluperfect?

7

Si hoc post hominum memoriam contigit nemini,

Si here is something like “given that.” “Given that this has happened to no one in human memory, do you expect vocal condemnation, when you’re overwhelmed by the most severe judgment of silence?”

Quid, quod adventu tuo ista subsellia vacuefacta sunt, quod omnes consulares qui tibi persaepe ad caedem constituti fuerunt, simul atque adsedisti, partem istam subselliorum nudam atque inanem reliquerunt, quo tandem animo tibi ferendum putas?

“What about the fact that at your arrival those benches by you were vacated, that all former consuls who had very often been marked for murder in your mind [tibi] left the section of the benches over by you bare and empty as soon as you sat down by them–with what state of mind [quo animo] in the end do you think you should endure this?”

Tandem is like French enfin – it injects a note of exasperation.

There is, I think, a slight anacoluthon here: at the beginning it looks like he is going to ask a question introduced by quid – "what about the fact that . . . ", but after he has laid out the facts in question, he switches gears: "how do you think you should endure [tibi ferendum]. . . "

The quod clauses (“the fact that”) are the direct objects of ferendum.

8

Thanks. That makes a lot of sense now.