Known to us only through the spectrum of hostile sources, Lucius Sergius Catilina (108–62 bc) is an enigma. Nevertheless, one aspect of his personality seems clear. However much they differ in their evaluation of the patrician's failed coup d’état in 63 bc, our main authorities, Cicero and Sallust, both assert his tremendous daring. This article will demonstrate that their agreement on this issue is deceptive. Reviewing their use of the word audacia (‘daring’) as an attribution typical for rebel behaviour, I will explore how its use in combination with words for madness and despair provides it with different positive as well as negative connotations. Although, as we shall see in more detail below, many scholars have either ignored the term or discussed audacia as a standard, mono-dimensional piece of invective, it is a dynamic and multifaceted word representative of the chaos of the Late Republic.
Both Cicero's and Sallust's representations of Catiline have a political agenda.Footnote 1 Cicero's suppression of Catiline and his followers was the making of his consulship and the crowning moment of his political career, but his arbitrary execution of some of the Catilinarians was also used by Clodius as a pretext to force him into exile in 58 bc.Footnote 2 We cannot enter here into the long-standing debate on when Cicero published his speeches, whether they were delivered exactly as they were written down, and how people responded to them, but it is obvious that both delivery and publication served a political purpose.Footnote 3
Cicero had unsuccessfully attempted to enlist Poseidonius to write a monograph on the events.Footnote 4 Sallust is clearly not in the business of exonerating Cicero, and offers a nuanced portrait of the consul, but he too had an axe to grind. His account was written in the aftermath of the murders of certainly Caesar and probably Cicero, marking the end of the Republic.Footnote 5 It was a period in which Sallust, who during his political and military career relied on Caesar, withdrew himself from public life. The story of Catiline offered him an opportunity to lament the fall of the Republic and the role of a degenerate aristocracy in that fall.Footnote 6
As we shall see, Sallust's and Cicero's uses of audacia not only reflect their respective biases but also illustrate the crisis they lived through and the dawning of a new age.
Insolent daring in Cicero's Catilinarian speeches
Audacia features so often in Cicero's four Catilinarian speeches that it functions as a slogan signalling the typical reckless and irresponsible behaviour of a rebel.Footnote 7 Cicero needed to demonize Catiline in such a way because his opinion that the frustrated politician was also a dangerous criminal was a contested one.Footnote 8 This need emerges, for example, in the famous first sentence of the First Catilinarian Speech, used by Cicero to denounce Catiline before the Senate on 8 November 63 bc: ‘How long, O Catiline, are you to abuse our patience (patientia)? And for what long duration will that madness (furor) of yours mock us? To what end will you throw your unbridled audacity (sese effrenata audacia) around you?’ (Cic. Cat. 1.1).Footnote 9 Directly addressing Catiline, who was present at the meeting, Cicero successfully aimed to convince him that his only choice was open rebellion. The message to the senators that Catiline no longer belonged in their midst comes out clearly through the rhetorical juxtaposition of his audacia and furor with ‘our patientia’, alienating Catiline.Footnote 10
Throughout it is important to remember that Cicero possessed no real evidence of Catiline's intentions until the Allobroges had conveniently constructed and acquired it for him.Footnote 11 Two days after his first speech, Cicero could celebrate Catiline's self-incrimination during a contio which further branded Catiline and his followers as rebels and criminals, but he still could not present any solid documentation. Until the third speech, a contio during which he presented the ‘evidence’ against the Catilinarians, the reality of the conspiracy was in doubt. The legality of Cicero's handling of the situation, moreover, remained contested, even afterwards. The fourth speech resulted in the summary execution of the captured conspirators, but also provides evidence of a strong opposition, headed by Caesar, against this sentence. Ultimately, as mentioned in the introduction, Clodius was able to use the questionability of Cicero's actions to force him into exile. Invectives such as audacia and furor therefore played a crucial role in estranging Catiline from the Senate and the People, and thus in creating support for Cicero's attempts to get rid of him.Footnote 12
What is remarkable about Cicero's opening is the equation of audacia with furor. Furor stands for the type of madness that results in rage and is usually inspired by a powerful emotion. In the Augustan age, furor would be used by epic poets such as Virgil, Lucan, and Horace in relation to the Civil War,Footnote 13 and Cicero's representation of Catiline as subject to this kind of madness may be a precursor to its later use.
Cicero leaves open the question of which emotions rule Catiline, although a range of passions including desperation, greed, and cruelty are connected to his followers.Footnote 14 Rather, in contrast to these, Catiline's furor appears to be something innate. Using a different word for ‘madness’, Cicero remarks towards the end of his speech: ‘It was for madness (amentiam) such as this that Nature bore you, that your will has trained you, and that fortune has preserved you’ (Cic. Cat. 1.25). The use of amentia only reinforces the impression of Catiline's madness as something stronger than an emotionally inspired rage. Unlike furor, which may come and go, amentia implies a complete and permanent loss of mind.Footnote 15 Earlier on, Cicero had already emphasized Catiline's headstrongness as part of his furor (1.22–3). The destabilizing role of furor, its potential threat as an invitation for civil strife, is used by Cicero to justify his own harsh treatment of Catiline (1.5). His use of amentia as a leading characteristic of Catiline, qualifies this: an avoidance of furor is no longer sufficient (1.2). The longer he is allowed to stay, the more acts of audacia Catiline will perform (1.4) and the more young men he will be able to entice (1.13–14).
Though Catiline might in reality have appealed primarily to the Roman youth, his role as a seducer of young men is also used rhetorically by Cicero to discredit him. It is significant that youth and revolution have been connected throughout ancient literature. In addition, the preparedness of young men to be seduced refers to their manliness still needing to be developed. Through emphasizing Catiline's relationship with the Roman youth, Cicero in effect attains two goals in one go. He sets aside a large portion of Catiline's followers as too young to properly understand the consequences of their actions, thus allowing for easy rehabilitation after the revolt;Footnote 16 and he represents Catiline as a bad influence on the youth, destroying the future of the Republic.
The combination of these associations of Catiline with furor, the young, amentia, and audacia thus serves Cicero well in his endeavours to disparage an opponent whose criminal intentions could not, at the time of the speech, be proved. These are words which are easily associated with revolution, crime, and general immorality, without Cicero actually having to make explicit accusations.Footnote 17 At this point, too, it was essential that he did not alienate those who might feel sympathy for the senator. In the following speeches on Catiline, Cicero's position towards Catiline's followers changes. Instead of concentrating on their youthfulness, Cicero depicts them as bandits and gladiatorsFootnote 18 and remarks that they have transgressed so far that his ‘consulship cannot cure them (sanare non potest)’. There is only one drastic solution for the Republic, and that is to ‘remove’ (sustulerit) these men (2.2). His assimilation of Catiline's revolt to a gladiatorial revolt extends to the point that he depicts Catiline himself as a gladiator (2.24) and in Speeches 3 and 4 refers to attempts by Catiline to recruit slaves (3.8, 4.4, 4.13).Footnote 19
Interestingly, Cicero's depiction of Catiline and his followers as gladiators coincides with an increasing emphasis on their despair and recklessness. This is true for the first speech, in which he refers to Catiline's men as reckless and desperate bandits (1.23 and 1.26). In the following speeches this theme receives more attention. In the second, a contio in which he announces Catiline's departure from the city, Cicero remarks that most of Catiline's followers who are not gladiators and slaves are rich men whose greed for power has led them to amass debts, and who see no other way out of their present situation than to join the revolution.Footnote 20 A long list of juxtapositions suggests that their giving way to despair is part of their moral weakness more generally.Footnote 21 Cicero clearly tailored the speech to his audience, who, he hoped, would not identify with gladiators, slaves, and rich men in debt and would see in him their saviour and protector from these criminal elements.
The role of despair and its connection to immorality is particularly interesting in comparison with Sallust. Throughout the speeches Cicero refers repeatedly to the socio-economic situation of the rebels as debtors, criminals, and slaves. The implication is that their moral weakness has led to their desperate circumstances. More significant, however, is the idea that in turn this desperation leads to a life full of vice. According to Cicero there really is no other option for these men than a dishonourable life as a rebel or an honourable death through suicide: ‘I do not understand why men who cannot live an honourable life should want to die in disgrace or why they think that it will be less painful to perish in a crowd than to die alone’ (Cic. Cat. 2.21). As we shall see below, one of the main differences between Cicero's and Sallust's representation of the rebels is their willingness to choose such an honourable death. But they also disagree on what is an honourable death. This relates to different evaluations of the rebels’ despair. In Cicero it is uniformly bad. Himself a key player in the conflict, he suggests that the rebels should choose death but appears pessimistic about the chances that they will. Rather, his rhetoric implies, they have already shown themselves to lack such moral fibre.Footnote 22
It is interesting that it is in the Pro Murena that we get a hint of why Cicero so consistently draws a line between despair, audacity, and moral weakness. Precisely because this was a speech defending his co-consul, who was almost certainly guilty, against charges of corruption and immorality, Cicero's tactic was to juxtapose the representation of a strong, trustworthy, and affable Murena against the dangerous Catiline. It was the combination of immorality with despair and audacia that made the latter such a menace.Footnote 23 Cicero in effect shapes his defence into a referendum of his own leadership during the crisis.Footnote 24 He refers in detail to one of Catiline's speeches:
You remember how the report of a speech which that evil cut-throat was said to have made in a meeting at his home spread throughout the city: that the only trustworthy protector of the poor able to be found was poor himself; that broken men and those down on their luck should not trust the promises of the prosperous and successful…
(Cic. Mur. 50)While he had depicted Catiline as a recruiter of youth, slaves, and criminals in the four speeches leading up to the final clash, here in a speech made at the same time Cicero refers to Catiline's own campaign as champion of the poor.Footnote 25 Although we only have Cicero to go on, this reference to one of Catiline's own speeches suggest that Cicero's references to the despair of Catiline's followers are a direct response to Catiline's appeal to the poor.Footnote 26 In our comparison with Sallust we need to keep in mind, therefore, that audacia is part of a rhetorical set of invectives, along with despair and all manner of moral weaknesses, which Cicero uses against Catiline and his men to undermine any argument they might offer.Footnote 27 Whereas Sallust is interested in Catiline as an example of the inversion of values that manifested itself in this period, and thus sees him as representative of a larger trend, Cicero's political purposes were best served by singling him out as a unique and extreme paragon of vice.Footnote 28
Daring at the point of no return in Sallust's Bellum Catilinae
The difference between Cicero and Sallust comes out clearly through an exploration of the two authors’ uses of audacia. We have already noted Cicero's listing of the rebels’ vices against their opponents’ virtues. Sallust begins his account with a similar juxtaposition but relates it to a general degeneration which ultimately leads to the fall of the Republic: ‘Instead of propriety (pudore), self-denial (abstinentia) and prowess (virtute), it was daring (audacia), bribery (largitio) and avarice (avaritia) which were thriving’ (Sall. Cat. 3.3).Footnote 29 As in Cicero's representation, audacia, along with bribery and avarice, drives Catiline and his followers, but simultaneously these vices lead Roman society at large astray.Footnote 30 Catiline's movement therefore serves as a symbol of the moral weakness from which the Republic suffers.Footnote 31 Sallust's own argument for writing about Catiline's conspiracy makes this clear, as he notes that the revolt is ‘especially deserving of recollection owing to the newness of the crime and of its danger’ (4.2–5).
Catiline's role in Roman history also comes out clearly in Sallust's extensive introduction of him (5), which is negative overall but also, like Cicero's, acknowledges his ‘strength of both mind and body’, enabling him to attract sympathizers. In accordance with their respective authorial agendas, Sallust's Catiline is much more popular than Cicero's, but his popularity is precarious: we read that ‘the whole of the plebs’ desired Catiline's revolution (37), but later Sallust notes that they had all crossed over to Cicero (48). This does not reflect well on either protagonist.
Nevertheless, a more positive tone of voice occasionally lurks behind Sallust's negative depiction of Catiline and his followers. He writes, for instance, with admiration of his and his men's daring and courage in meeting their end:
But it was only when the battle was over that you could have perceived properly what daring (audacia) and what strength of purpose (animi vis) there had been in Catiline's army…In fact, from that entire force, no freeborn citizen was captured either in battle or in flight, they had no more spared their own lives than those of the enemy.
(Sall. Cat. 61.1–6)Catiline is clearly a figure of tremendous daring in the eyes of Sallust. This is not a positive characteristic as it inspires him to seek fulfilment of his desires by unlawful means. But it is not altogether negative either. Sallust's acknowledgement of Catiline's tremendous potential in his introduction of him can be interpreted as strengthening the overall impression of disillusion and disappointment.Footnote 32 Through emphasizing both Catiline's strength and his viciousness, Sallust clarifies the dangers that loss of discipline and excess lead to. His depiction of Catiline thus demonstrates how deep even the best of men may fall.Footnote 33
Unlike Cicero, who used audacia primarily to describe Catiline's ambition to overthrow the government and not his behaviour in battle, Sallust uses audacia in combination with a ‘strength of purpose’ that leads to a heroic death of everyone and Catiline most of all.Footnote 34 Sallust's comment that ‘they had no more spared their own lives than those of the enemy’ may refer to the destructive consequences of the rebels’ daring, but it also emphasizes their preparedness to stand and fall for their ideals.Footnote 35
In his detailed description of Catiline's speech before the war, Sallust has him digress in detail on the hopeless situation his army is in, making it clear that there is no alternative than to force their way through violence. His army is now enclosed by two enemy armies and running out of food.Footnote 36 Reminding his men of their virtus as well as their audacia, he emphasizes that now is the time to demonstrate both in this final battle. Catiline's words on surrender read like a sharp comment on Cicero's accusation that he had only desperate men in his army, which would therefore quickly fall to pieces (Cic. Cat. 2.3). He remarks that:
It was open to you to lead a life of the utmost disgrace in exile, some of you, having lost your property, could have anticipated wealth from other quarters in Rome; but because those alternatives seemed foul and intolerable to true men, you decided to follow this path.
(Sall. Cat. 58.13–14)In other words: there are plenty of shameful options of living with destitution and loss of political power. Giving in to the corruption and degeneracy of the Roman elite would be one way, but it is not what these proud rebels chose. In contrast to Cicero, who argued that joining the rebellion would have been the only option apart from suicide, Catiline compliments his men for choosing his side and thereby risking an honourable death. He finishes on an optimistic note, suggesting that death-defying daring may lead his men to safety: ‘In battle there is always the greatest danger for those whose fear is greatest: but to have daring is like a barrier (audacia pro muro habetur)’ (58.17).Footnote 37
Though it may be possible that Sallust's use of audacia and virtus in this speech refers to the ease with which Catiline is able to deceive his followers, as part of his adaptation of Thucydides’ theory of stasis,Footnote 38 the context of the speech suggests otherwise. Catiline's admonishment of his followers to not die ‘like cattle’ (58.21) mirrors the very opening sentence of the monograph, in which Sallust remarks that we must not pass through our lives in silence ‘like cattle’.Footnote 39 The depiction of the ensuing battle, moreover, indicates that Sallust's evaluation of Catiline's audacia is ambivalent, but not purely negative.
At this stage in the revolt, ‘daring’ is indeed a powerful barrier. Catiline's enemy Cicero could use his ‘daring’ as another argument for why he needed to be stopped; Sallust mostly uses it to emphasize the extremity of Catiline's ambitions; but for Catiline and his men it is a prerequisite that enables them to fight for what they believe is right.Footnote 40 Cicero, in contrast, never mentions Catiline's abilities as a commander in battle. In his view, audacia is only a further sign of Catiline's madness.
By including this speech and by using the same word for daring both in his representation of Catiline's character and in his choice of vocabulary, Sallust demonstrates the ambiguous status of daring. Rather like the Greek τόλμη, it is not audacia as such that is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but the combination of this ‘daring’ with other values that makes it so. In view of Sallust's use of Thucydides it is not surprising that he shows such a keen interest in daring as a part of courage. For Thucydides (3.82.4) the misrepresentation of mere daring as courage was one of the key signs of an inversion of values in a situation of civil strife. Here, in Sallust's narrative of a Republican civil strife, we meet a man who, though he also uses virtus in his speech, appears to call for mere daring. In that context it cannot be accidental that Cicero and Catiline as quoted by Sallust appear to agree on Catiline's possession of daring.Footnote 41
So is not Sallust, through this focus on Catiline's daring, simply demonstrating and lamenting the dangers of civil strife? To a large extent, yes. After all, the barrier that audacia provided the rebels with ultimately proved futile.Footnote 42 But there is more to it. For one thing, Catiline does not just appear as a representative of the inversion of morals; his speech is also painfully persuasive. By the same token, much has been said of Sallust's habit to contrast speeches and behaviour in order to highlight the speaker's hypocrisy.Footnote 43 In whatever way we interpret Catiline's speech and final battle, it does not demonstrate any hypocrisy.
Sallust's sympathy for the rebels also comes out clearly in Catiline's depiction of his movement as a ‘struggle for fatherland, for freedom, for life’, as opposed to Cicero's party, whose struggle ‘is a superfluous flight, for the power of a few’ (Sall. Cat. 58. 11–12). Sallust does not agree with that analysis and is clear about Catiline's more Machiavellian ambitions, but he does leave the possibility open that many of Catiline's followers may well have believed that their struggle was noble and justified.Footnote 44 His understanding for Catiline's men is carried over into the final paragraph of the Bellum Catilinae, which remarks on how many Roman army men found friends, guests, and relatives as well as enemies among the dead.Footnote 45 This confirms the extent to which, according to Sallust, the struggle between Catiline and Cicero had become more than an armed rebellion. It had become a civil war, with talented and worthy Romans on either side of the struggle.Footnote 46 The sorrow and grief experienced by Sallust's victors is a far cry from Cicero's vengefulness, which had its invective function before the battle but continued long after.
Ann Thomas Wilkins, in her Villain or Hero. Sallust's Portrayal of Catiline, suggests that Sallust may have identified himself with the rebels. She refers to ‘Sallust's youthful folly’, which led him to leave an active political career and turn to writing, and offers that ‘Sallust seems to see in himself the possibility, given the moral climate of his time, to have been a Catiline’.Footnote 47 In view of Sallust's association with Caesar it is also interesting to note that, in his comparison of Caesar's and Cato's speeches, Sallust (though agreeing with Cato's uncompromising attitude) finds sympathy with Caesar's arguments to save the rebels.Footnote 48 Caesar, moreover, is one of the few authors who actually use audacia in a uniformly positive sense.Footnote 49 It would be too simple to argue that Sallust's disenchantment with politics in general and with Caesar in particular, led him to champion Cicero's less martial understanding of virtus.Footnote 50 As we have seen, he remained critical of the great orator. Rather, he demonstrates two divergent ways of thinking about virtus: one, Cicero's, close to the Greek ἀρετή; the other, Caesar's, much closer to the Greek ἀνδρεία. The latter implies a proper dose of τόλμη/audacia. Footnote 51 The different opinions that Cicero and Sallust offer of Catiline's daring and insolence in effect point to different ideas of what is desirable in a man.
Sallust's more nuanced account of Catiline's rebellion therefore not only shows signs of sympathy and understanding for the rebels but also hints at a different idea of the role of daring and despair in courage. Catiline did not just say that ‘daring is a barrier’; he demonstrated it by turning a hopeless match into a hard-fought battle. He and his followers fought the battle for all the wrong reasons and were defeated, but they lost the battle in the best manner possible, thanks not only to their virtus but also to their audacia.
