The Historians' History of the World 05

There happened to be at the time in Rome certain envoys of the Allobroges, a Gallic people, who had long vainly sued for justice from the republic, under the cruel exactions to which they had been subjected by the government in the province. The wild mountaineers whose cause they pleaded had risen more than once to extort their claims by arms; their discontent, swelling under repeated disappointment, was ready once more to explode at any favourable opportunity, while the senate, full of more important and more alarming affairs, still treated them with contemptuous neglect. So favourable was the moment that the conspirators addressed the envoys through a citizen well known to them, named Umbrenus, disclosing their contemplated plan for the overthrow of the government, and offering them a dire revenge as the price of their nation’s assistance. They at once embraced the proposal and promised the aid of their countrymen. But presently, awed by their deep impression of the invincibility of the consuls and imperators, they sought the counsel of Fabius Sanga, the patron of their tribe in Rome. By him they were persuaded to reveal the negotiation to Cicero, who caused them to affect the deepest interest in the conspiracy, and to extract from the traitors a written engagement for the price of their alliance. Lentulus, Cethegus, and Statilius affixed both their names and seals to the document required. On receiving it the envoys quitted the city in company with Volturcius, one of the conspirators, deputed to conclude the negotiation with the Allobroges in their own country. The consul, kept duly informed of all their proceedings, caused them to be waylaid at the foot of the Milvian bridge, three miles beyond the gates, and they immediately surrendered their despatches. While this was in progress the consul summoned the chief conspirators into his presence. They came without mistrust; surrounding them with his lictors and archers, he led them directly to the senate. In the face of the assembled Fathers he produced the fatal letters; and the culprits, overwhelmed with confusion, acknowledged their guilt by their silence. Lentulus, who had fondly flattered himself on the strength of a reputed oracle of the Sibyls that, after Cinna and Sulla he should be the third Cornelius to reign in Rome, was compelled to abdicate the prætorship on the spot, and, placed with his associates in the custody of the most dignified senators, to await the decision of their fate.

Meanwhile, the examination being closed, Cicero addressed the people, who crowded in agitation and alarm around the doors of the curia, upon the rumour of the awful disclosures going on within. To the multitude the wary consul submitted no judicial proof of the culprit’s designs. He contented himself with declaring the evidence upon which they had been convicted to be their correspondence with Catiline, a public enemy, and their detected intercourse with the hostile Allobroges. This sufficed to brand them as pledged to succour an invader, to harbour him within the city, to deliver Rome to the fury of Etrurians and Gauls. But to prove their ulterior designs would have involved the discovery of the consul’s secret sources of information, it would have been unbecoming the dignity of the government, and inconsistent with the politic reserve of an aristocratic assembly.

CÆSAR AND THE CONSPIRACY

[63-62 B.C.]

The conspiracy thus critically arrested has been represented, in accordance with the evidence before us, as the work of mere private cupidity or ambition. But the ruling party sought to incriminate in it their public adversaries. They had already studied to implicate both Cæsar and Crassus in the presumed machinations of Catiline at an earlier period. They now repeated the effort with increased virulence, and Catulus himself was foremost in urging Cicero to produce testimony against Cæsar. Such testimony might doubtless have been suborned; loose surmises might at least have been construed into grave presumptions. But to such a project the consul steadily refused to lend himself. He was sensible perhaps that Cæsar’s popularity would in fact screen from justice every culprit associated with him, and in giving him the charge of Statilius, one of the criminals, Cicero openly declared himself convinced of his innocence. Indeed the great difficulty was still to be overcome, and the consul would not permit himself recklessly to enhance it. Nine of the conspirators had been denounced, five were convicted and confined; but the nature of their punishment yet remained for decision. The law of the republic, as interpreted at least by the patricians, invested the chief magistrate with power of life and death, on the senate issuing its ultimate decree. On this authority alone bold men had slain presumed criminals, and the senate had loudly applauded them.