Oratio in Catilinam Tertia

Latin Learning Latin
1

Section 10. The letter to Catiline urging him to bring his army to Rome and for the Allobroges to bring their cavalry, having been intercepted at the Mulvian Bridge, is being read to the conspirators in the Senate.

Hanc autem Cethego cum ceteris controversiam fuisse dixerunt quod Lentulo et aliis Saturnalibus caedem fieri atque urbem incendi placeret, Cethego nimium id longum videretur.

(“(The Allobroges) said, however, that this dispute was between Cethegus and the others because it pleased Lentulus and others that slaughter be done and the city be burned during the Saturnalia (sc. when the slaves were treated more leniently); to Cethegus it seemed (too?) long (the Saturnalia was still a few weeks away).” I spent the greater part of my time this morning with this sentence and I think I’ve got it, but I don’t quite understand the syntax of “Cethego cum ceteris”; I just went from context but I’m not sure why “Cethego” is in the ablative (dative?). At first I thought that “Cethego” was nominative – it seemed to make sense as such here – but earlier there was a genitive form “Cethegi” which complicates things.)

Ac ne longum sit, Quirites, tabellas proferri iussimus quae a quoque dicebantur datae.

(“And so that it be not long, Romans, I ordered the tablets to be brought forth which also were said to be given.” I can’t find any function for the “a” and the sentence doesn’t make the most sense.)

2

Cethego cum ceteris controversiam fuisse

The traditional category for Cethego would be dative of possession (although it’s not really possession here). esse + dative is often equivalent to “have”: “there was a dispute/argument to Cethegus with the others” = “Cethegus had a dispute/argument with the others”.

Lentulo et aliis . . . placeret – this is another impersonal construction that has to be turned around in English: “Lentulus and the others wanted”. placeret + dative here means something akin to “thought it appropriate”, “thought it was a good idea” or maybe just “wanted”. You could do the same in translating Cethego nimium id longum videretur: “Cethegus thought that was too [nimium] long”.

Note that the quod clause has subjunctive verbs because this is part of what the Allobroges are reporting.

“They said that Cethegus had an argument with the others on the grounds that Lentulus and the others thought that the slaughter should occur and the city should be burned during the Saturnalia, but Cethegus thought that was too long.”

Ac ne longum sit, Quirites, tabellas proferri iussimus quae a quoque dicebantur datae.

dare with tabellas or litteras means “write”.

quoque here is not the adverb but the ablative of quisque, the object of a.

“And, to make matters short, Romans, I ordered the tablets which were said to have been written by each [of them] to be produced.” Or maybe better translate by turning datas into the active voice: “I ordered the tablets which each of them was said to have written be produced.” The idea is that the tablets were produced and identified as to authorship.

3

placet + dative and videtur + dative can be more or less synonymous – expressing someone’s opinion as to the right course of action. These are Latin idioms that should be noted.

Here videretur means “seemed”. Videtur can also sometimes just be the passive of videre.

Placet + X nominative (or an infinitive) + Y dative, where X is a thing, not a person, can also mean “Y likes X”.

4

For controversiam maybe '“difference of opinion” would be better.

And for quod – “in that”.

“They said that Cethegus had a difference of opinion with the others in that Lentulus and the others thought that the slaughter should occur and the city should be burned during the Saturnalia, but Cethegus thought that was too long.”

5

Thanks. “Cethego controversiam fuisse” makes sense now.

I try to keep my translations as literal as possible in case I’m doing something wrong fundamentally.

I looked up “dare” with “litterae” just the other day but it never occurred to me to extend it to “tabellae”. Everything is good now (I knew the basic sense of “placere” + dative but I didn’t know the more subtle bits – thanks for that) I looked ahead to sections 11 and 12 and it seems to be a bit tougher than the rest of this oration so far, but it’s Saturday so there’ll be no rush.

6

I looked up “dare” with “litterae” just the other day but it never occurred to me to extend it to “tabellae”.

That was where Lentulus was staying up uncharacteristically late writing a letter, wasn’t it?

7

Yes.

On that topic, is there any way to distinguish between a single and multiple letters? I had been under the impression that there was one or more likely two letters here (one to Catiline and one to the Allobrogian Senate) but it turns out that each conspirator had written one. “Litterae” isn’t uncountable like “copiae” or “moenia” and it seems it would be awfully ambiguous in everyday use.

8

I dont think there is a way to distinguish. It’s like English “papers” meaning certificate(s) or document(s) of identity or authenticity.

Cicero uses the word tabellae to refer to the letters where he needs to be specific that there were more than one, because each of the conspirators wrote at least one letter: tabellas proferri iussimus quae a quoque dicebantur datae

However, Lewis and Short note that–

In poets also sometimes in sing.: quam legis a rapta Briseide littera venit, Ov. H. 3, 1; 5, 2; id. M. 9, 515; Tib. 3, 2, 27; Mart. 10, 73 al.—

This is because all inflected forms of litterae include a cretic – long short long. This is a metrical shape that can’t fit into a hexameter verse, and so the word can’t be used in hexameter verse – the most prevalent meter in Latin poetry. It can’t fit an elegiac couplet, either. There are a number of common Latin words that the poets can’t use for this reason.

quam legis a rapta Briseide littera venit – “the letter you’re reading is from abducted Briseis”. She’s writing Achilles from Agamemnon’s tent after having been seized by him as a replacement Chryseis, who has been returned to her father Chryses.

9

Interesting about “littera”.

Lentulus’ letter has been read in the Senate, and he claims he was set up by the Gauls and Volturcius. (11-12 really weren’t that hard after all). One difficult sentence:

Qui cum illi breviter constanterque respondissent per quem ad eum quotiensque venissent, quaesissent ab eo nihilne secum esset de fatis Sibyllinis locutus, tum ille subito scelere demens quanta conscientiae vis esset ostendit.

(“When (the Gauls) had briefly and firmly responded that they had come to him so many times of his own bidding, and they had asked (Lentulus) if anyone with (besides?) him had spoken of the prophecy of the Sibyl (sc. that Cornelius Lentulus would be the next Cornelius to rule Rome), at that time he suddenly showed, because he was out of his mind with so great a crime, the force of conscience.” He goes on to confess in the next sentence. The pluperfects early in the sentence: they’re because they happened before Lentulus’ actions? And why subjunctive? You’d expect indirect speech; “per quem” seems to introduce a subordinate clause for “venissent” but “quaesissent” seems to be in the main clause)

10

Qui cum illi breviter constanterque respondissent per quem ad eum quotiensque venissent, quaesissent ab eo nihilne secum esset de fatis Sibyllinis locutus, tum ille subito scelere demens quanta conscientiae vis esset ostendit.

Does your text read quaesissent or quaesissentque? Mine has quaesissentque, which reads better although asyndeton between respondissent and quaesissent isn’t impossible. These verbs are subjunctive in a circumstantial (as opposed to purely temporal) cum clause. They’re pluperfect because they occurred before the event of the main clause, signaled by tum.

Allen & Greenough 546:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=AG+546&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0001

per quem ad eum quotiensque venissent is an indirect question, or rather two indirect questions: “through whom [as intermediary] and how many times they had come to him”

secum refers back to the Allobroges, not to Lentulus, and it’s plural (or rather it’s a pronoun that isn’t marked as to number, and here it has a plural antecedent).

nihilne secum esset de fatis Sibyllinis locutus – this is another indirect question, a leading question: their question was nihilne nobiscum es de fatis Sibyllinis locutus? “You didn’t speak with us at all about the Sybilline prophecies?” “You never spoke with us at all about the Sybilline prophecies?”

quanta modifies vis conscientiae, not scelere, which is neuter.

vis conscientiae – I think this isn’t just neutral “conscience” in the sense of moral scruples, but rather something like “consciousness/awareness of his own guilt”. Esset, I think, places this in the specific context of Lentulus’ situation. Sit would make this a general statement about human behavior. The idea is that his breakdown under cross-examination confirms the veracity of his confession – Perry Mason drama.

“When they [the Allobroges] briefly and firmly answered [by disclosing] through whom and how many times they had come to him, and asked him whether he had never spoken with them at all about the Sybilline prophecies, suddenly, unhinged by his criminal culpability [scelere demens], he demonstrated how powerful [quanta] the force of his awareness of his own guilt was.”

Edit: I changed “to us” to “with us” and made a few other tweaks.

11

Well that was embarrassing. I had followed a train of thought that seemed to make sense to a dead end. Oh well – when you’re flying high sometimes you need to be smacked down a bit. The next two sections are super-easy, thankfully.

Thanks for the breakdown. I’m not sure I would have gotten it anyway.

(For the record I never expected my translation to be right but I had hoped I was at least on the right track, but no)

12

Going back to the second speech, section 10, something that puzzled me is more intelligible:

hoc vero quis ferre possit, . . . dormientis [insidiari] vigilantibus?

I found the idea of sleeping men engaged in fomenting plots odd. But I now see that this must be a jibe at Lentulus, who is consistently represented as lazy and fond of sleep (just like me). Could this characterization just be a play on his cognomen–a diminutive of “sluggish”? However, this wasn’t a “personal” cognomen; rather, it belonged to a branch of the gens Cornelia, and there were other Cornelii Lentuli around. He had a personal cognomen, Sura, which is explained in this Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publius_Cornelius_Lentulus_Sura

13

That’s an interesting thought! It seems that whenever I look ahead to the next passage and find that it looks kind of tough it turns out to reveal itself pretty easily (perhaps I’m getting better; equally likely, the material is easier). Such was the case with 15-16, but one tricky sentence.

The Senate decrees a period of thanksgiving:

Atque ea lenitate senatus est usus, Quirites, ut ex tanta coniuratione tantaque hac multitudine domesticorum hostium novem hominum perditissimorum poena re publica conservata reliquorum mentis sanari posse arbitraretur.

(“And by the mercy the Senate has used, Romans, that from so great a conspiracy aand so great a multitude of domestic enemies and most base men by this punishment, with the Republic saved, the minds of the rest are thought possible to be healed.” I think I disentangled the ablatives right (ed: I’m a bit less sure now ed2: “ea lenitate” does double duty as abl. of means and the object of “east uses”?)) but the “multitudine … perditissimorum” I still have a little trouble with; where does “novem” fit in? I’m not sure about “re publica conservata” either. I took it as an ablative absolute (“with the Republic saved it is thought possible”) but looking at it again I’m not 100% sure, especially since )

14

Atque ea lenitate senatus est usus, Quirites, ut ex tanta coniuratione tantaque hac multitudine domesticorum hostium novem hominum perditissimorum poena re publica conservata reliquorum mentis sanari posse arbitraretur.

Utor normally takes an ablative complement, here, ea lenitate.

ea here can be translated “such”, followed by the ut clause of result.

novem hominum perditissimorum is genitive with poena – “by the punishment of [the] nine most corrupt/desperate men” or perhaps this is an absolute superlative: “by the punishment of nine utterly desperate men”. I’m strongly inclined to see a relative superlative here, “the nine most desperate men” out of the entire conspiracy and the multitude of domestic enemies, and to contrast with reliquorum – “the rest”. But Cicero is fond–excessively fond–of absolute superlatives. Hominum, not virorum.

Yes, re publica conservata is an ablative absolute.

arbitraretur is imperfect subjunctive, not present, and arbitror is a deponent, passive in form but active in meaning. The subject of arbitraretur is senatus. Here, I think, it has the formal, official meaning of rendering a decision. See Lewis & Short, arbitror II A (though they don’t cite any examples from Cicero):

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.0:3372.lewisandshort

“And the Senate has used such leniency, Romans, that it decided that by the punishment of the nine most corrupt men out of so great a conspiracy and this so great multitude of domestic enemies, the Republic having been saved, the minds of the rest could be healed.”

I’ve rearranged the word order in a way that’s somewhat less effective than the original in order to demonstrate the force of the superlative perditissimorum: “the most desperate/corrupt out of the whole conspiracy”.

“east uses” – is this the result of auto-correct spell-check?

15

Ah. So the second part of the sentence is “ut … arbitraretur”? I’m bad at sentences like these. Also I confused “novem” with “novum” (no wonder it didn’t make sense!). I had read it that by the punishment of those men that the others’ (citizens’) minds would be freed from fear (hence “healed”) so my translation seemed to make sense. Thanks!

16

What does poena depend on? Surely conservata. The republic was preserved by the execution of the nine, not by the possibility of mind-healing of the others.
It’s a nicely constructed sentence, that has to be read in the order in which it comes, but in translation has to be drastically rearranged, which flattens the effect. That’s to say, it can’t really be translated.

A vast conspiracy — (a mere) nine punished — the republic saved — rehabilitation for the rest. All neatly tied together and bundled within ut arbitraretur, and the harshness of the crackdown represented as leniency.

poena is euphemistic—he has to softpedal the execution of Roman citizens, who have not been declared hostes (even though he calls them that).

Note novem and reliquorum at the head of their respective phrase-units, giving emphasis and helping articulate the sentence.
A good habit to develop is to break sentences down into their constituent parts as you read. Cicero’s word order facilitates that, imposes it even.

Atque ea-lenitate senatus est-usus,
Quirites, (inserted between main and subordinate clause)
ut (picking up ea and introducing subordinate clause)
ex tanta-coniuratione ı tantaque-hac-multitudine-domesticorum-hostium
novem-hominum-perditissimorum poena (poena abl., long syllable at phrase end)
re-publica conservata | (end of abl. absol.)
reliquorum mentis sanari posse
arbitraretur. || (rounding off the entire subordinate clause; this is the finite verb we’ve been waiting for ever since the opening ut)

17

Yes, poena depends on conservata. I missed that.

If I’m not mistaken, under Roman law neither the consuls nor the Senate had the authority to order the execution of Roman citizens without trial. However, beginning with the murders of the Gracchi around 120 BCE, and continuing over the course of the next hundred years, as republican institutions gave way to a series of struggles between competing warlords, the Senatus consultum ultimum, a decree by the Senate instructing the consuls to take whatever action was necessary to avoid harm to the Republic, came to be regarded as an implicit license to kill.

Given the vague language of the Senatus consultum ultimum, Cicero is being somewhat disingenuous when he suggests that the execution of the nine conspirators was a decision of the Senate–Cicero himself probably took the initiative to order their executions, and, to the extent his actions had suport in the Senate, it was due to his advocacy.

Lentulus happened to be the stepfather of Mark Antony, and Cicero’s summary execution of Lentulus was an important factor, if not the most important factor, that engendered the bitter hatred between the two men. ending with Cicero’s proscription by the Second Triumvirate on Antony’s insistence. Cicero had supported Octavian against Antony before the triumvirate brought them together, foolishly thinking that he would be able to manipulate Octavian, who was still very young.

18

Yes, the SCU was very weak cover—as the sequel demonstrated, when a few years later he was forced into exile for these executions. And they can be seen as ultimately though indirectly leading to his being executed in turn, as Qimmik says. Political maneuverings were life and death affairs in the Roman Republic—as of course in most parts of the world they still are.

19

Thanks to the two of you for the information.

Today’s readings (17-18) have some difficulties (again, not nearly as many as a summary glance yesterday portended) but there are no hard sentences so I should be able to figure it out on my own. I’ll give it more looks throughout the day and see where that gets me.

20

I think I got 17-18 by the end of yesterday and today I moved on to 19-20, which presented no difficulties. A couple of questions: what’s the rhetorical figure called of mentioning things by “omitting” them? It occupies a lot of section 18 and it came up earlier. Also Qimmik mentioned that Cicero loved to use the relative superlative: how do you tell the difference between a relative and absolute if they have the same form and often mean essentially the same thing? (e.g. “a most excellent man” vs. “the most-excellent man” in English)

Please keep up the commentary on historical, etc. context. It’s really interesting, even if all I can really say about them is “thanks”.