Sallust and Romulus Cesspool - Ideals and Characters in The Bellum Catilinae

Sallust and Romulus’ Cesspool: Ideals
and Characters in the Bellum

Catilinae
A dissertation submitted to the University of

Manchester for the degree of Classics and Ancient
History, Master of Arts in the Faculty of Humanities.
2015
Shannon A. Ourada
School of Arts, Languages, and Cultures
Word count: 14, 948
5
Abstract
This dissertation studies how the preface of Sallust’s
Bellum Catilinae compares and contrasts with his
depiction of characters, particularly Caesar, Cato and
Catiline. The preface is the place where Sallust
consciously elaborates on his ideals, which makes it
the key point of Sallust’s thought. Compared to the
standards of the preface, these individual characters
reveal that there is more going on than just a
straightforward presentation of morals: there are
problems with the conception of Roman virtues
themselves. Sallust provides a multi-faceted
perspective of history throughout his monograph, and
he shows that even the two moral characters cannot be
held to his prefatory standards. As the only two men
with virtus, they cannot fix the ailing Republic alone.
At the same time, he allows the reader to view
Catiline as more than the villain by adding in
speeches from Catiline’s perspective and a letter. In
this way, his work brings to light the complex reality
of contemporary Roman politics. After all, Catiline is
the central figure, and even he has potential. He seeks
gloria like Caesar and libertas like Cato, and all three
of them tie into Sallust’s own words and thoughts.
6
Introduction
In a letter to Atticus, Cicero calls Cato ‘a
political liability’ because Cato ‘speaks in the Senate
as though he were living in Plato’s Republic instead
of Romulus’ cesspool’.1 As humorous as this critique
is, the realpolitik understandably presents
complications for an idealist. While Rome and Sallust
adapt ideas from the Greeks, the political reality
confounds the strict moral guidelines Sallust
encourages men to adhere to. Describing events in
Republican Rome, he uses history to describe how
contemporary times are dire in comparison to Rome’s
glorious past. This allows him to add significance to
the event he selected to describe: the conspiracy of
Catiline.
From the beginning of the Bellum Catilinae,
Sallust sets up the readers’ expectations by detailing
the path to virtuousness so that they would expect
Sallust’s monograph to further explore the proper way
to live one’s life according to Roman virtus.
However, the path gets lost in the cesspool as he
moves onto the rest of the narrative. Sallust’s laid-out
1
Cicero, Letters to Atticus 2.1.8, trans. D.R. Shackleton Bailey
(1999).
7
ideals are contrasted with the characters he actually
presents as the reader sees that even those Sallust
considers to be morally upright cannot be bound by
his strict codes of conduct.
With individual characters, he shows that
Roman values can be attributed to various characters
in differing meanings, especially in the case of
Caesar, Cato, and Catiline. This is particularly evident
with virtus2. The first two have virtus, yet together
they cannot save the Republic. With Catiline, Sallust
highlights the absence, or perhaps perversion, of
virtus. Catiline aspired to gain political power, yet he
could not gain power through traditional means or by
his attempts to go around the system. If Cato and
Caesar could not save the Republic and Catiline could
gain so much support by going against the Republic,
what are the Romans trying to achieve by seeking to
have these virtues? Sallust suggests that the way of
2
Virtus varies in meaning, but J.C. Rolfe (1985), used for all the
English translations of Sallust in this dissertation, prefers
‘excellence’. For example, he translates virtus clara aeternaque
habetur (1.4) to ‘mental excellence is a splendid and lasting
possession.’ For this dissertation, virtus is used in this same
context, but includes the idea of ‘goodness’ as well as prowess,
which is why I argue that Catiline, though he has potential, does
not have virtus. Likewise, Sallust says he has magna vi et animi
et corporis (5.1), but never virtus.
8
life he advocates in his preface should be strived for,
yet in practice the path to fame is unattainable for
those who seek it willingly as well as those who try to
take matters into their own hands.
In the preface of the Bellum Catilinae, Sallust
lays out the framework for his monograph and tells
the reader what to expect. He writes that the
conspiracy is ‘worthy of special notice because of the
extraordinary nature of the crime and the danger
arising from it’.3 Markedly, the crime itself is the
danger, and Sallust does not specifically say here that
Catiline is the danger; in fact, Catiline himself is not
even mentioned. In Sallust’s view, he is just a symbol
of the larger problem: the problem with virtus and
Roman values. According to Sallust, the degeneration
of Roman society began with the fall of Carthage, and
the lack of this external threat opened up Rome to
increasingly more internal corruption.4 I propose that
Sallust does not just describe the conspiracy within
the historical context but uses the event as an
exploration of the deterioration of traditional Roman
values.
3
Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 4.4.
4
Ibid 10.1.
9
Accordingly, this dissertation will focus on
how the preface outlines Sallustian ideals and sets up
reader expectations that the monograph builds on,
particularly with the descriptions and words of
characters within the monograph. I will show how the
preface forms the foundation of the work and allows
Sallust to logically explore the ideas within it and the
rest of the narrative. Then, using the ideas of the
preface as the benchmark, I will examine Caesar and
Cato as well as Catiline. When Sallust describes these
individuals in the synkrisis of Caesar and Cato and the
description of Catiline, he guides the reader’s
perception of their characters. However, when he lets
them speak for themselves, their words reveal
different accounts of events. Through these multiple
perspectives, the reader begins to question whether
Sallust’s conception of Roman values is applicable to
the cesspool of Romulus.
Overall, I aim to highlight how unique
Sallust’s perspective is. Though his work includes a
strong emphasis on morals and history, he is not just a
moralising historian; he provides the reader with a
multi-faceted study of human nature in a corrupt
political environment. In other words, Sallust serves
10
‘as an interpreter of the world who scrupulously
locates himself at once inside and outside politics’,
meaning he ‘consequently implicates himself in the
very problems he diagnoses’.5 He is attempting to
explain why the Republic has reached this pitiable
point and what has made the Romans turn against
themselves. The internal conflict reaches its peak with
the speeches of Caesar and Cato, which is the reason
Sallust singles them out and why they particularly
showcase the argument of this thesis. With Caesar and
Cato, virtus itself becomes irreconcilable, highlighting
the seemingly impossible task of saving Rome from
itself. This brings us to Catiline, for even as he is
portrayed as the villain, he is much more than that
within the context of the Bellum Catilinae. Although
at first glance Sallust seems to be painting the same
dark picture of Catiline, later on he reveals the grey
areas within the conspirator through his speeches to
his followers, his letter to Catulus, and his leadership
of his forces in battle. These grey areas I have singled
out for analysis all indicate that there is much more to
Catiline than villainy within the Bellum Catilinae.
5
Connolly (2014) 80.
11
The Preface
The preface is not just the introduction to the
monograph, but also crucial in understanding the
words to follow.6 This is especially true for the
Bellum Catilinae, as Sallust continually makes use of
its ideas in later sections of his work. While the
beginning of any work certainly shapes the reader’s
interpretation of what follows, Sallust’s preface is
especially pertinent for the discussion of Caesar, Cato,
and Catiline as they reveal the breakdown of virtues
that Sallust declares is emblematic of his time.
One of the most notable features of the preface
is its length. As Marincola points out, the work ‘is
positively leisurely in getting about the business of its
actual topic’.7 Though certainly lengthy, if Sallust is
taking the time to lay out his ideas in so much depth,
the preface must be important: the preface illuminates
6
Peltarri (2014) 46 argues that prefaces ‘are not self-explanatory,
that they must be read and understood within a particular
framework’. Though Peltarri discusses poetry, this observation
extends to prose as well.
7
Marincola (2010) 193. Pagán (2004) 38 also notes that this
preface is ‘proportionately the longest extant Latin prose
preface’, and Kraus and Woodman (1997) 13 observe that it
‘compromises over a sixth of the book as a whole’.
12
the implications of the ‘actual topic’. Kraus and
Woodman argue that Sallust’s persistent belief in
the utility of history, and on the possibility of
learning morally sound behaviour from
observing the past, makes demands on the
reader beyond simply that of listening to the
voice of doom.8
Their take is that Sallust is trying to teach and even

inspire his readers. Regardless of whether or not
Sallust is trying to teach and inspire, they also
subscribe to the view that Sallust’s preface is the
foundation of his work, which serves the purpose of
this thesis as the character analyses will conform to or
contrast with Sallust’s ideas in the preface.
In general, scholars have held mixed views of
Sallust’s prefaces; they have been praised, not judged
at all, or, as Janson notes, criticised ‘as banal
rhetorical performances without originality, or
worse’.9 The breadth of these views makes pinning
8
Kraus and Woodman (1997) 10, referring to the Bellum
Catilinae and the Bellum Jugurthinum.
9
Janson (1964) 69. According to Krebs (2008b) 581, these
criticisms begin with Quintilian (3.8.9) when he stated that
Sallust’s prefaces do not relate ad historiam. For claims of
unoriginality, Sallust was clearly influenced by rhetoric and
Greek philosophers, and ‘general characteristics of Roman
historical prefaces became the same as the Greek’ (Janson (1964)
68, 66). [For coherence, this dissertation will focus on Sallust’s
13
down the preface even more difficult. However, the
major ideas originating in the preface continue
throughout the work, and these ideas show that Sallust
used his preface to guide the reader’s journey through
the monograph. Multiple different motifs are evident
in the preface, and these can be used as lenses for
examining the rest of the work.10 While chosen
emphases vary, these different emphases shape their
view of the rest of the monograph. For this
dissertation, the ideas in the preface serve to set up the
readers’ views of the major characters, especially
Sallust’s emphasis on evading obscurity, seeking
glory, and the dichotomy of mind and body.
Key Motifs
From the start, Sallust sets up his work for all
men with the words ‘Omnis homines’.11 Scanlon
declares that this means that Sallust wants his work to
be ‘universal and timeless in application’. 12
In this
portrayal of characters and not his sources of ideas, but Sallust’s

use of ideas from Greek philosophy is noted.]
10
Examples of this include Krebs (2008b), who selects ‘the way’
as the theme; Hock (1988), who uses servile behaviour; and
Batstone (2010), who uses Sallust’s view of virtus with
particular focus on the synkrisis.
11
12
Scanlon (1987) 12.
14
regard, Sallust begins by explaining the best way for a
man to live his life: Omnis homines qui sese student
praestare ceteris animalibus summa ope niti decet ne
vitam silentio transeant veluti pecora…13 Part of the
key to being more than a mere beast is not to pass
through life in silentio. In using the word silentio,
Sallust displays his characteristic ambiguity.
Woodman takes silentio here to mean ‘obscurity’, and
follows Neatby and Hayes in reading silentio as ‘not a
state in which one says nothing, but a state in which
nothing is said about one’.14 Obscurity is exactly what
Sallust wants to avoid for himself as a writer, and
those who wish to live as men and not beasts must
likewise avoid obscurity.
Along with avoiding obscurity to be better
than beasts, he explains the importance of the mind
and body: ‘we employ the mind to rule, the body
rather to serve; the one we have in common with the
Gods, the other with the brutes’.15 What sets humans
apart is their intellect. Besides the importance of
intellect itself, Sallust adds that being remembered is
13
14
Woodman (1973) 310.
15
Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 1.2-3.
15
also something to strive for. To be remembered, ‘we
should employ the resources of the intellect rather
than those of brute strength’ because ‘mental
excellence is a splendid and lasting possession’.16
Sallust is not just concerned with how to live one’s
live properly, but also how one should be
remembered. Sallust stresses the importance of being
a man ‘who performed great deeds by the force of his
spirit’.17 Not only should one have a commendable
intellect, but one should use that intellect in the
pursuit of noteworthy achievements.
Developing the distinction between mind and
body further, Sallust applies his ideas to men in times
of war. He notes that men need to use both their
physical and mental capabilities in war ‘for before
you begin, deliberation is necessary, when you have
deliberated, prompt action’.18 Though Sallust is
known for his use of antithesis, here he is uniting two
opposite characteristics and highlighting how they
need to work in concert with one another. In Pagán’s
view, the division between the mind and body is like
16
17
Janson (1964) 89.
18
16
the separation between master and slave, which in
turn represents Rome’s social hierarchy. She suggests
that mind and body relationship could represent the
‘command of the senate over the people, the consul
over the senate, or … the command of the optimates
(nobles) over the populares’.19 The problem with this
argument, though, is that Sallust continually stresses
the importance of the mind over the body, yet he
condemns the contemporary aristocracy, so it would
be odd for him to be promoting their control over the
people as he promotes the mind over the body.20
Following these same lines, he moves on to
how kings use their mental and physical strength to
rule. Thus, he transitions from general principles to
more specific ones.21 He uses the example of kings to
highlight the changing values. Hinting at the problems
19
Pagán (2004) 38.
20
Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 13 is but one example of Sallust’s
tirade against those who squander their wealth and lose their
virtues. His condemnation of the nobilitas is more apparent in
the Bellum Jugurthinum, as noted in Wiseman (2010) 39. Sallust,
Bellum Jugurthinum 42.4 condemns the nobilitas, who ‘abused
their victory to gratify their passions…’ Noted, potentially
Sallust could be stressing that this particular aristocracy is
corrupt and needs serve the country better, but not that
aristocracies as a whole are corrupt for being the ‘head’ of the
citizen ‘body’.
21
Pagán (2004) refers to Sallust’s tendency to move from
general to specific, but not in this particular instance.
17
to come, he writes, ‘Even at that time men’s lives
were still free from covetousness; each was quite
content with his own possessions’.22 This
covetousness is one of the Sallust’s favourite vices to
emphasise. For example, Sallust describes how
Sulla’s men started to desire material possessions and
how this desire corrupted them:
One coveted a house, another lands; the
victors showed neither moderation nor
restraint, but shamefully and cruelly wronged
their fellow citizens.23
The kings, however, were fine rulers until the

Persians and the Greeks started to ‘consider the
greatest empire the greatest glory’, which Sallust
concludes, taught men ‘that qualities of mind availed
most in war’.24 This emphasis on intellect is
significant for the analysis of Caesar, Cato, and
Catiline as all of them use their intellect for their own
purposes25
22
23
Ibid 11.4.
24
Ibid 2.2.
25
For Caesar and Cato, intellect helps play on their listeners’
hopes and fears. For Catiline, his intellect did not serve him well
enough to take over through traditional means, but like the kings,
he could use it to take over by force.
18
While animi virtus (mental excellence) is
beneficial in war, it is also helpful in times of peace.
If rulers used the same mental capabilities in war as
they did in peace, Sallust says that ‘human affairs
would run an evener and steadier course’.26 The
problem is that men change as they acquire empires.
Sallust lays out these issues clearly:
‘when sloth has usurped the place of industry,
and lawlessness and indolence have
superseded self-restraint and justice, the
fortune of princes changes with their
character’. 27
To summarise, Sallust values the mind over the body,

yet both are necessary in times of war and peace.
However, men must not succumb to sloth, avarice, or
indolence.
Continuing along the path of mental
excellence, Sallust points out that agriculture,
navigation, and architecture all require intellectual
abilities.28 Yet some men, Sallust scornfully observes,
pay more attention to bodily pleasures than
intellectual pursuits. He cares little for these
26
27
Ibid 2.5.
28
Ibid 2.7.
19
individuals, and he would rather emphasise the type
of man ‘who devotes himself to some occupation,
courting the fame of a glorious deed or a noble
career’.29 This is the type of man who, as Sallust
believes, makes the most out of his life. This is made
manifest in his characterisation of Caesar, Cato, and
Catiline for Caesar and Catiline seek glory while Cato
has his reputation.
To avoid obscurity, one must pursue glory,
and Sallust highlights multiple paths to glory. One of
the glorious paths is serving one’s own country,
preferably through glorious deeds, but he notes that
‘even to serve her by words is a thing not to be
despised; one may become famous in peace as well as
in war’.30 Feldherr argues that Sallust at first
distinguishes between doing, speaking, and writing,
yet Sallust’s remarks ‘go together with an insistence
that all three activities are qualitatively comparable in
the first place as “paths” for achieving fame’.31 The
distinction blurs even further as Sallust begins
explaining his own path.
29
30
Ibid 2.9.
31
Feldherr (2013) 55.
20
Here, Sallust segues into a discussion of
writing history. Sallust’s narration becomes more
personal as he acknowledges his political background
explains his decision to write history. Woodman
argues that the preface’s most significant point is ‘that
one can legitimately seek this gloria through words
no less effectively that through deeds’.32 For Sallust,
this is relevant as he can still attain personal glory
through writing, since ‘[n]ot only those who have
acted, but those also who have recorded the acts of
others oftentimes receive our approbation’.33 In this
way, he seems to justify his reasons for writing the
monograph.
While writing about history was his route to
glory, he also used history to further his own
arguments within his work. Sallust is using his
perspective of the past to guide the rest of the
narrative. By pointing out the abundance of virtues
and the lack of particular vices, Sallust is using
history to illuminate societal problems in the present,
which makes it so that ‘Sallust’s account derives
much of its significance from history that falls outside
32
Woodman (1973) 310.
33
21
the scope of the Catilinarian Conspiracy’.34 As a
result, the conspiracy itself becomes more important.
Above all, the preface puts Sallust’s
philosophy of what it means to be human on display.
To him, people who are lazy and wholly devoted to
pursuing bodily pleasures are not human; these people
are no better than beasts. One must actively work
towards a career, preferably a career that endows one
with personal glory and serves the country. The three
individuals selected for this thesis pursue political
careers in their own way as shown by their
descriptions and speeches. While Caesar and Catiline
pursue glory openly, Cato lets glory come to him.
Looking at these three, the reader is prompted to
question not only what it means to serve one’s
country, but also how those who pursue glory can be
at fault since that makes them more than beasts.
Caesar and Cato

Before getting to Catiline, I will look at
Sallust’s two models of virtus, Caesar and Cato. For
this dissertation, Caesar and Cato provide an example
34
Grethlein (2013) 268.
22
of the multiple perspectives within the Bellum
Catilinae, which also provide contrasts and
similarities to the exploration of Catiline. They
illustrate how Sallust contradicts his stated views in
the preface in later parts of his work, leaving events
open to multiple interpretations. In placing them in
diametric opposition to one another, Sallust makes
Caesar and Cato emblematic of the dramatic tension
caused by the conspiracy. As will be shown, they each
have ideas similar to Catiline’s, so their speeches and
descriptions provide background for the environment
Catiline is fighting in.
Roles in the Bellum Catilinae

Though Caesar and Cato seem to have little to do
with the Catilinarian conspiracy, ‘Sallust sets his own
rationalistic and moralistic ideals in opposition to
each other’ through Caesar and Cato’s speeches and
descriptions’.35 Others besides these two speak in the
deliberations, yet Sallust does not care to include their
speeches; he brings Caesar and Cato to the forefront
of the deliberation.36 At first, this seems odd since the
objective, as Sallust declares, is to share ‘the
35
Sklenàř (1988) 206.
36
Syme (1964) 109.
23
extraordinary nature of the crime’37, not demonstrate
two men and their distinct types of virtus.
Nevertheless, these speeches appear to grant Sallust
the perfect opportunity to illustrate the ideals sketched
out in the preface. He uses these two individuals to
put his ideals into practice in the political sphere.
Caesar and Cato are the most notable
individuals that Sallust praises for having virtus.
Sallust tells the reader that during his own time he can
recall ‘two men of towering merit, though of diverse
character, Marcus Cato and Gaius Caesar’.38 He
makes it clear from the start of the synkrisis that these
two are not cut from the same cloth. Both had
distinction, were praised, earned glory, and had virtus.
Sallust takes time to highlight their differences, yet he
speaks favourably about both of them. For this essay,
they are used to showcase differing kinds of virtus,
and their speeches and differences show that there is
no easy reconciliation of Roman values, which is also
evident with Catiline.
37
38
Ibid 53.6.
24
Caesar’s Speech and Description
The first mention of Caesar in the Bellum
Catilinae is at 47.4 when he is entrusted with taking
Statilius, one of the captured conspirators, under
house arrest. Sallust then includes a variety of past
incidents to make it clear Caesar has made many
enemies, despite his virtus, or perhaps because of it.
For example, Catulus was angry that Caesar held the
pontificate though he was younger and had less
experience.39 Even with these enemies, Caesar still
had enough of a reputation to be trusted with holding
one of the conspirators and giving his opinion on what
to do with the captured conspirators.
In his speech, Caesar recommends that the
senate take pity on the conspirators and confiscate
their money and put them under guard in various
locations outside of Rome.40 He fears that in
executing the conspirators they would be setting a
dangerous precedent. If they execute these men
without a trial, later Romans could be subjected to the
same treatment. Though the senatus consultum
39
Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 49.1 singles out Catulus and Piso as
enemies, and 49.4 describes how Caesar was threatened by
equestrian guards as he left the senate.
40
Ibid 51.43.
25
ultimum grants the consul to do whatever is necessary
to defend the state, Caesar encourages the senate to
not be too harsh. He urges them to ‘be free from
hatred and friendship, anger and pity’.41 This
sentiment echoes Sallust’s claim that he is free from
‘hope, and fear, and partisanship’.42 As Sklenàř notes,
Caesar is essentially telling the senators ‘how not to
lapse from the Sallustian ideal of humanity’.43
Even though Sallust attributes the speech to
Caesar, he makes Caesar’s speech fit within his own
style. Besides Caesar’s reference to Sallust’s
statement of impartiality, Caesar also refers back to
Sallust’s own text since his speech begins with
‘Omnis homines’ just like the beginning words of the
Bellum Catilinae.44 These examples serve to show
this speech, though attributed to Caesar, is Sallustian
in style and diction.45 Sallust continually makes use of
intratextual references, so that while the focalization
is Caesar’s, his words echo Sallust’s own.
41
42
Ibid 4.2-3.
43
Sklenàř (1998) 207.
44
45
See Sklenàř (1998) 206 for this example and others of how
Sallust and Caesar’s words match up.
26
Alongside Sallust’s focalization through
Caesar, Caesar’s speech corresponds with Sallust’s
description of his character. Sallust declares that
Caesar is great because of his ‘kindnesses and
munificence’, and that he earned distinction for his
mercy and pity.46 This explains why Caesar is arguing
that the senate should be merciful regarding the
conspirators. At the same time, Caesar’s speech is a
bit ironic considering his portrayal— as a man of
action, he is counselling the opposite. At the same
time, though, Caesar is someone who cares about how
others perceive him and seeks fame through glorious
deeds.47 His reputation matters and he has to keep
being considered kind and generous by his friends and
allies. Also, Sallust claims that ‘Caesar gained glory
by giving, helping, and forgiving’.48 For this reason,
he would be the one to encourage forgiveness.49
46
47
Ibid 2.9.
48
Ibid 54.3.
49
Notably, Caesar is right in the end as Cicero was criticised for
carrying out the execution. For example, Sallust, Bellum
Catilinae 22.3 notes that ‘hostility’ arose against Cicero.
Likewise, Dio, 46.20 (trans. E. Cary (1917)) has Fufius Calenus
in his defence of Antony in 43 attack Cicero because he decided
to ‘slay Lentulus and his followers, who were not only guilty of
no wrong, but had neither been tried nor convicted’.
27
Sallust portrays Roman society as especially
concerned with one’s reputation, and Caesar as
someone who continually seeks to maintain a positive
reputation.50
Despite the fact that the style and word choice
is Sallustian, Caesar’s speech serves to reinterpret the
ideals that Sallust set out to explore. Sklenàř observes
that both Sallust and Caesar refer to lubido in terms of
dominari. For both of them, passion must be
controlled. Caesar says, si lubido possidet, ea
dominator, animus nihil valet.51 While Caesar sees
desire as something dangerous that can make one’s
mind value nothing, Sallust sees lubido as something
that inspires one to take drastic actions. Specifically,
Sallust notes that the Athenians and Lacedaemonians
began to make lubidinem dominandi causam belli
habere.52 Sklenàř argues that Sallust uses these words
to show that ingenium is superior in war, but that
Caesar’s speech reveals ingenium and lubido cannot
50
Reputations matter for Catiline and Cato as well. Catiline’s
negative reputation continually gets in the way of his attempts to
be elected, and may have been exaggerated, like with the blood
oath rumour (12.2-4). Cato’s reputation is due to his constantia
(54.3).
51
52
Ibid 2.2.
28
function together in the same way outside of the
context of war.53 This intratextual reference highlights
the different emphases applied to Sallust’s ideals
found within the preface his own narrative. Caesar
and Sallust both highlight how lubido causes people
to make irrational decisions, to value nothing or to
value war for the sake of conquest. In practice,
Sallustian ideals are modified to suit the needs of the
character.
In Caesar’s view, the present is less bleak than
Sallust would have the reader believe. He does not see
another Sulla in the present: Sulla is a ‘closed
chapter’.54 After noting Sulla’s negative impact by
admitting ‘the massacre did not end until Sulla glutted
all his followers with riches’, Caesar claims, ‘I fear
nothing of that kind for Marcus Tullius or for our
times’.55 Though he does not equate the execution of
the conspirators to Sulla’s executions, this reference
does bring up the destruction and fear Sulla caused.
However, Caesar does not see Catiline’s conspiracy
as a continuation of Sullan violence, which sharply
53
Sklenàř (1988) 208, Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 2.2 refers to
ingenium being superior in war.
54
55
29
contrasts with Sallust’s view of events. This is
significant because Sallust cites Sulla not only as
inspiration for Catiline, but he also blames Sulla for
bringing ‘everything to a bad end from a good
beginning’ since he allowed men to ‘rob and pillage’
and because of his influence they ‘showed neither
moderation nor restraint, but shamefully and cruelly
wronged their fellow citizens’.56 By veering away
from Sallust’s perspective, Caesar’s speech ‘hammers
home that we are being offered an alternative history
of Rome’.57 This is unexpected considering the
straightforward summation of the conspiracy and the
relationship between past and present in Sallust’s
preface. Within his own work, Sallust gives the reader
multiple perspectives of history, and this encourages
the reader to view the conspiracy in a similar manner
as history is used to explain contemporary problems.
Cato’s Speech and Description

When discussing Cato, Sallust first mentions
Cato when he is about to give his speech. As
56
In Sallust’s eyes, Catiline desires to be the next Sulla. Sallust,
Bellum Catilinae 5.6 declares Sulla to be Catiline’s inspiration
for taking over the government, and 11.4-6 elaborates on Sulla’s
damage to the Republic.
57
30
McGushin comments, Cato had ‘a political influence
far outweighing his actual political activity’ due to his
‘reputation for an unbending moral outlook coupled
with the influence of a great name and a nexus of
family connections’.58 He was, after all, the great-
grandson of Cato the Censor, giving him a reputation
and adding more gravitas to his words. One’s
ancestry was still considered an important part of
political influence.
Unlike Caesar’s attempt to move the senate to
mercy, Cato argues that the senate has to think of the
present situation and the impact of what they are
about to do. Cato reminds the senators that ‘when you
decide the fate of Publius Lentulus and the rest, you
will at the same time be passing judgment on
Catiline’s army and all the conspirators’.59 Moreover,
Cato emphasises the reality of the danger Rome is in.
He declares that since the men ‘plotted warfare
against their country, parents, altars, and hearts…the
situation warns us rather to take precautions against
them than to argue about what we are to do with
58
McGushin (1977) 257.
59
31
them.’60 Cato’s main objectives are ‘to show how the
magnitude of the danger requires swift punishment,
and that hesitation will only embolden the hopes of
the conspirators’.61 These particular conspirators are
only part of the problem in Cato’s view: ‘As if,
indeed, there were base and criminal men only in our
city and not all over Italy, or as if audacity had not
greatest strength where the power to resist it is
weakest!’62 Cato argues for a strong response to the
threat, which would serve as an example for the rest
of the conspirators as well as any future conspirators.
Just as Caesar’s words echo Sallust’s, Cato’s
criticisms are in line with Sallust’s. Like Sallust, Cato
elaborates on ‘the marked juxtaposition of a glorious
past with a deficient present’.63 For example, Cato
praises the ancestors and uses their example to further
demonstrate how far Rome has fallen, which is
reminiscent of Sallust’s own digression on Rome’s
60
61
Scanlon (1987) 32.
62
Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 52.15-16. This directly contrasts
Caesar’s suggestion, as summarised by Cato, that ‘the goods of
the prisoners be confiscated, and that they themselves be
imprisoned in the free towns’ (52.14).
63
32
glorious past.64 Cato declares that they made Rome
great not just by arms, but that they had other qualities
that the Romans no longer possess, such as ‘efficiency
at home, a just rule abroad, in counsel an independent
spirit free from guilt or passion’.65 Cato has no doubts
that unlike their forefathers, the senators care more
about their properties and material possessions than
their own country, and he makes his appeal to their
desire to keep their luxuries and wealth.66 Sallust
describes how men used to be ‘free from
covetousness; each was quite content with his own
possessions’, yet the senators are no longer free from
desire.67 The senators that Cato addresses are the
‘basest of creatures’, who ‘with supreme wickedness
are robbing our allies of all that those heroes in the
hour of victory had left them; they act as though the
one and only way to rule were to wrong’.68 Cato
recognises this and tailors his speech accordingly to
64
Cato argues, ‘Do not suppose that it was by arms that our
forefathers raised our country from obscurity to greatness’
(52.19) and continues to praise the ancestors (52.19-22) in
contrast to contemporary Romans, which strongly echoes
Sallust’s praise (9) and criticisms (10-13).
65
66
Ibid 52.5.
67
Ibid 2.1.
68
Ibid 12.5.
33
play on their hopes and fears, particularly their
concern for maintaining their wealth.69
While their perspectives are similar, Cato and
Sallust have different relationships with politics. Cato
did not take part in the same vices that Sallust did.
Cato remarks, ‘I, who had never granted to myself or
to my impulses indulgence for any transgression,
could not readily condone misdeeds prompted by
another’s passion’.70 Sallust acknowledges this as
well when he states that Cato ‘did not vie with the
rich in riches nor in intrigue with the intriguer…’71
Cato is the image of self-control and restraint. Sallust,
however, tells the reader that he ‘took no part in the
evil practices of others’, yet he was ‘the victim of the
same ill-repute and jealousy as they’ were.72 As the
narrator, Sallust can see both sides of the debate on
what to do with the conspirators at the same time as
he can relate to how the conspirators and others were
tempted because of their ambition.
Based on Cato’s speech, he is shown to
possess a steadfast character, which is unsurprising
69
70
71
Ibid 54.6.
72
Ibid 3.5.
34
given Sallust’s description of Cato. Sallust praises
him for being steadfast and notes that his prestige is
due to his strictness.73 Clearly, Cato is advocating
strict punishment for the conspirator, and his
exemplum of Manlius Torquatus further emphasises
his adherence to strict conduct74. Oddly, though, Cato
does not seek to make a name for himself. Sallust
states that ‘ita quo minus petebat gloriam, eo magis
illum sequebatur’.75 While Sallust praises him, Cato
did not follow Sallust’s model of a man who should
seek gloria to be better than the beasts.76 Cato clung
to his morals but did not strive to be remembered.
Two Men with Virtus

Eventually, the senate sided with Cato, and his
proposal was praised by the majority of the senate and
they ‘lauded his courage to the skies’. 77
However,
this does not mean that Sallust sees Cato as superior
to Caesar. As Batstone notes, Sallust’s ‘judgment
obscures the putative equality of Caesar and Cato, and
his method undermines the superiority of one over the
73
74
Ibid 52.30.
75
Ibid 54.6.
76
Ibid 1.3.
77
Ibid 53.1.
35
other’.78 They represent qualities that Sallust
commends in his prefatory ideals, and both fall in line
with Sallust’s criteria for a good man, for whom he
delineates two types: the man who pursues fame
through deeds and the man who gains recognition for
a noble career.79 Caesar is more akin with the former
while Cato is more like the latter as Cato does not just
seem virtuous but actually is. Caesar is the opposite
because he actively pursues fame: ‘He longed for
great power, an army, a new war to give scope for his
brilliant merit’.80
While Caesar and Cato clearly contrast each
other, their different characteristics are not mutually
exclusive. Both are able to have virtus even though
they possess this quality for different reasons. Kapust,
among others, notes that Cato and Caesar’s
behaviours ‘are not antithetical; indeed, they could be
complementary’.81 This argument hearkens back to
Syme’s assessment that though ‘Caesar and Cato were
divergent in conduct, principles, and allegiance’
together they ‘had what was needed to save the
78
Batstone (1988) 4.
79
80
Ibid 54.4-5.
81
Kapust (2011) 74, Syme (1964) 120.
36
Republic’.82 However, even they could not save the
Republic, and this urges the reader to observe that
Sallust seems to be illuminating a deeper flaw within
the Republic and the political system. If the two men
of great virtus cannot come to an agreement and can
only temporarily alleviate concerns, how can the
Republic be saved?
Though he agrees that the virtues of Cato and
Caesar are presented in a fragmented way, Batstone
disagrees that an alliance between these two great
figures could save the Republic. He argues the
problem is that the virtues themselves are ‘in conflict
with each other’ and that there is ‘an underlying
conceptual failure which produces an opposition
between the traditional Roman virtues of action and
the traditional intellectual categories by which those
virtues are known, named, and understood’.83 In other
words, the problem lies in the conception of the
virtues themselves. Perhaps, as Syme suggests, Cato
and Caesar possessed the right qualities to save the
Republic, but the problem was that they were unable
to make their divergent values aid the Republic. Thus,
82
Syme (1964) 120.
83
Batstone (1988) 2.
37
as the conflict went unresolved, the issues plaguing
Republic remained unresolved. Batstone, on the other
hand, subscribes to a pessimistic view when he claims
that Sallust ‘saw the conflict as irresolvable and
presented it in a form where resolution is merely
arbitrary’.84 Though pessimistic, Batstone’s argument
seems to have more support from the text itself.
Caesar and Cato are exceptions to Rome’s current
deplorable state in which like ‘when mothers are
exhausted by child-bearing, no one at all was
produced at Rome who was great in merit’.85 At this
time, they alone have virtus, but they cannot fix
Rome.86
When looking at each in isolation, the virtues
stand up. The tension is created when the two men are
pitted against each other. The synkrisis serves as
Sallust’s tool to highlight the turmoil caused by the
conspiracy even within those that should be on the
same side: the side of those opposing Catiline. For
84
Batstone (1988) 22.
85
86
Collins (1955) 448 argues that Sallust viewed Caesar ‘as “the
God that failed;” the man of beneficia and munificentia, and
even of virtus and magnitudo animi, in whom, however, the one
thing necessary was wanting: the will and care to re-create the
republic.’
38
example, Caesar ‘appears to be doing well for others,
performing bona and munera, engaged in the life of
officia and duty. It is the appearance of Cato’s virtue
that undermines these virtues’.87 If one virtue can
undermine another, then the problem lies with virtue
itself. There is more at work here: ‘the problem was
larger than Cato and Caesar’.88 As Batstone argues,
‘Sallust’s text subverts judgment, sets the reader’s
ability to accommodate against his desire for
consistency and fixed definitions and standards,
recreates and reveals problems within ingens virtus’.89
As the reader attempts to use Sallust’s prefatory
guidelines to analyse these characters, the guidelines
are revealed to be too rigid to align with the character
completely.
Perhaps through these individuals with their
incompatibility the reader is supposed to acknowledge
that the issues within the Republic are similarly
irreconcilable or at least not permanently. Kapust
gives two possible explanations for the lack of a
permanent solution: ‘the roots of the crisis are too
87
Batstone (1988) 11.
88
Ibid 17.
89
Ibid.
39
deep to uproot permanently’ or the tensions of the
conflict are ‘simply part of a political life, a life that
involves the precarious and perpetual balance of
different elements – individuals and groups,
complementary yet distinct virtues’, and he notes that
‘then the task becomes not one of directing them
onward, but finding some means to channel and
temper them’.90
Again, this all refers back to Sallust’s preface.
Cato and Caesar ‘will also echo Sallust’s own words,
further highlighting the uncertainty and ambiguity
involved in making a decision based on deliberative
oratory’.91 This highlights how Sallust remains
impartial. He uses the aforementioned intratextual
references from both Caesar and Cato’s perspectives,
which make his ideals appear to be reflected in each
of their viewpoints.
In the end, the debate between Caesar and
Cato did not solve anything. Batstone sums up the
senate’s decision and its impact succinctly:
90
Kapust (2011) 54 argues that rhetoric is the answer, but I
would argue that Sallust does not seem to give the reader a
solution.
91
Ibid 66.
40
the synkrisis creates a premonition of conflicts
to come: what was solved, when the senate
moved to Cato’s side, was only the immediate
problem caused by something even deeper,
indeed, something intimately a part of the very
proceedings which attempted to solve the
problem of the conspirators.92
The problem in the Bellum Catilinae is with Roman
values themselves. Though both Cato and Caesar
were virtuous men, they could not fix the problems
with the Republic.
Catiline
Having analysed the ways in which the
speeches and synkrisis of Caesar and Cato highlight
the multiple perspectives presented in the Bellum
Catilinae, we turn to the figure of Catiline. In order to
do this, we must put aside the speeches of Cicero and
his view of Catiline and focus on how Sallust lets
Catiline speak for himself rather than how Sallust
details Catiline’s negative qualities. Although his
description of Catiline is problematic, his words and
92
Batstone (1988) 29.
41
his death are presented as quite heroic, and quite
characteristically Roman. This chapter seeks to
explore how Sallust presents Catiline as more than
just the villain. I intend to overturn his main
characterisation as malefactor and examine how he
may instead be considered a flawed hero. This will
serve as another indication of the breakdown of
Sallust’s morals in practice.
The Typical View of Catiline

Often, Catiline is portrayed as a purely evil
villain set on destroying everything the Roman
Republic stands for.93 I want to examine how he is
portrayed and investigate the places where his
character seems to differ from Sallust’s description. In
other words, I will focus on the places within the
Bellum Catilinae where Catiline seems to be more
than a villain, as these have not been given sufficient
emphasis in existing analyses. Tying this back to the
prefatory criteria, this section will show how Sallust’s
morals play out in the political sphere. Since Catiline
93
This portrayal stems from Cicero, In Catilinam I 1.4.9, when
Cicero declares that Catiline and his followers are ‘men who
plan for the destruction of all of us, who plan for the destruction
of this city and even the destruction of the whole world!’
42
is mostly vilified but portrayed heroically in his
orations, his letter, and his final battle, the reader is
forced to somehow reconcile these drastic differences
in Catiline’s depiction.
While Pagán admists that some modern
scholars try to view Catiline differently, she argues
that Catiline becomes the symbol of evil in literature
and poetry, citing one of the most telling and famous
examples of his depiction on Aeneas’ shield in Aenied
8, which features Catiline as one of Rome’s most
infamous villains.94 Virgil addresses Catiline, ‘the
penalties of sin, and you, Catiline, hanging on a
frowning cliff, and trembling at the sight of the
Furies’.95 He is acknowledged as the villain here since
he is directly contrasted with Cato. Virgil adds, ‘far
apart, the good, with Cato giving them laws’.96
Catiline, the most immoral, is described as the
opposite of Cato, the most righteous. Catiline serves
as the villain in whatever situation he is placed in. He
94
Pagán (2004) 8. Others include Beesly (1878), Kaplan (1968),
and Wilkins (1994).
95
Virgil, Aeneid 8.668-669, translated by H. Rushton Fairclough
(2000).
96
Ibid 8.670.
43
is the epitome of the lawless just as Cato is the
emblem of the law.
Klapp points out that individuals are selected
as villains when society feels ‘a widespread feeling of
moral alarm, resulting perhaps from flagrant crimes, a
military threat, or the failure of an institution’.97 All
three of these factors are present with Sallust’s
Catiline; he is accused of crimes and is building an
army, but it is society that has failed in Sallust’s eyes.
Catiline, though he himself had a corrupt nature, ‘was
spurred on, also, by the corruption of the public
morals, which were being ruined by two great evils of
an opposite character, extravagance and avarice’.98
Furthermore, Klapp argues that during this period of
vilification ‘the punishment of culprits acquires a
distinctly ritualistic character’.99 Though not precisely
ritualistic, both Cato and Caesar acknowledged that
the punishment of the conspirators would be setting a
precedent.
Seeing Catiline as the villain is when looking
at the works of Cicero. Cicero’s reasons for
97
Klapp (1954) 60.
98
99
Klapp (1954) 61.
44
portraying Catiline as the villain are clear; he needs
Catiline to be the worst enemy Rome has ever seen so
that he can be Rome’s best defender. As Klapp notes
in a binary view of heroes and villains, the function of
the hero depends on the villain: ‘to adequately play
the part of deliverer or avenger it is necessary to have
a strongly defined concept of an aggressor, traitor, or
public enemy, against whom to draw one’s sword’.100
For Cicero to be Rome’s great saviour, he needs to
make Catiline look as nefarious as possible. In this
way, he adds to his reputation as the saviour of Rome.
One major example of Cicero’s exaggeration
of Catiline’s threat to Rome is his reference to
Tiberius Gracchus. According to Cicero, Tiberius
Gracchus was ‘only slightly undermining the
foundations of the state’, but Catiline ‘is anxious to
destroy the whole world with murder and fire’.101
Clearly, Cicero wants to make Catiline as villainous
as possible to make himself look even more heroic for
his defeat of Catiline, yet Sallust’s words do echo
Cicero’s in many instances. Cicero, addressing
Catiline in front of the senate, declares, ‘You have
100
Klapp (1954) 61.
101
Cicero, In Catilinam I 1.1.3.
45
never desired peace, nor war unless it were a wicked
war. You have a band of criminals swept up from
those whom all fortune and even all hope have
deserted and abandoned’.102 Sallust similarly
describes how Catiline prefers war to peace. In his
first description, he notes that even from a young age
Catiline ‘revelled in civil wars, murder, pillage, and
political dissension’.103 Additionally, Sallust
negatively portrays Catiline’s followers, writing that
Catiline surrounded himself ‘with troops of criminals
and reprobates of every kind’.104 Despite these
similarities, Sallust moves away from Cicero’s
characterisation for the most part, perhaps to allow
room for other interpretations and to further play on
the multiple perspectives of history within the Bellum
Catilinae.
Several scholars have recently attempted to
imagine Catiline in a new light. Wilkins has argued
for a more open-minded look at Catiline since, as she
puts it, ‘Sallust defines Catiline from both traditional
and revolutionary points of view; from the former
102
Cicero, In Catilinam I 1.10.25.
103
104
Ibid 14.1.
46
viewpoint he is evil, and from the latter,
admirable’.105 She concludes that Sallust negates his
descriptions of Catiline by showing that his actions
are in fact commendable. He turns his ferocia and
audacia, which Sallust initially criticises him for, into
useful qualities on the field of battle. Beesly, in an
attempt to reimagine Catiline, declares, ‘If you have a
political quarrel with a man at Rome, you accused
him, as a matter of course, of all vices and crimes,
natural and unnatural’.106 Rumours such as these were
surely effective since they were written down and still
influence the view of Roman history. Acknowledging
Syme and agreeing with Beesly in this aspect, Kaplan
declares that the best arguments in elections during
this period ‘were allegations of disgusting immorality,
murder, debauchery, incest, human sacrifices,
degrading pursuits and ignoble origin’.107 Notably,
almost all of the items in his list were charges made
against Catiline. Kaplan notes that Cicero is fond of
using this strategy to discredit his political opponents,
and that because of this his words, as well as those of
105
Wilkins (1994) 54.
106
Beesly (1907) 22.
107
Kaplan (1968) 2.
47
Sallust, against Catiline cannot be taken entirely
seriously to say the least. He adds that both Sallust
and Cicero ‘are untrustworthy and unreliable sources
for the character and motives of Catiline’.108 While
this is certainly true for Cicero, Sallust does allow for
alternative views in his depiction of Catiline.109
There are also doubts concerning the first
conspiracy. Grethlein expresses his by noting that ‘[i]t
seems highly unlikely that Catiline should have
planned a violent coup before his rejection at the
elections of 64’.110 If Catiline still has a chance to be
consul by the traditional means at this time, it does
not make sense for him to plot to take over by force.
Beesly believes that Catiline must have had the
potential to be elected. He declares that ‘the
acknowledged leader of the popular party, after the
108
Kaplan (1968) 5.
109
Grethlein (2013) argues that Sallust attaches even more
importance to Catiline than Cicero. In his view, Sallust sees the
conspiracy ‘as the symptom of a crisis that goes far back in
history and cannot be solved through the cosmetics of executing
some conspirators’.
110
Grethlein (2013) 276. Ramsey (1984) cite discrepancies in
Cicero’s account of the first conspiracy as well as the differences
and lack of evidence evident in other ancient sources’ accounts.
Like Grethlein, Ramsey declares that there is no reason for
Catiline to have been involved in a plot to take the consulship by
force ‘since at the time he had every reason to hope that he could
gain this office at a later date by means of election’ (238).
48
departure of Pompeius, was not Caius Julius Caesar
but Lucius Sergius Catilina’ because Catiline and his
followers make up ‘the party which thought itself
strong enough to revolutionise the state, and,
according to Cicero, was within an ace of doing
so’.111 While this may be an exaggeration, Catiline
clearly had enough support to frighten Cicero and the
senate. Following Henderson, McGushin argues that
the story was merely a kind of propaganda or scandal
since there were numerous discrepancies in each
telling of the plot.112 The use of the conspiracy story
for propaganda aligns with Sallust’s purpose. Though
these doubts about the first conspiracy’s veracity are
understandable, Sallust’s brief depiction of this
conspiracy is essential for his casting of Catiline as
the villain. Grethlein explains Sallust’s decision to
antedate the conspiracy and to highlight Catiline’s
role in it:
Instead of appearing as the disappointed
reaction of an aristocrat who after several
failures to gain the consulate finally gives up
and tries a coup d’etat, it can be presented as
111
Beesly (1907) 16.
112
49
thoroughly planned and deeply evil scheme
that is emblematic of Rome’s utter
depravity.113
Sallust uses Catiline as a symbol of moral decline so
that Catiline’s own depravity must be cast in the
darkest light possible, and thus the first conspiracy is
used to make Catiline’s decision to use force into
more than a desperate ploy. Instead, Sallust’s Catiline
has always been plotting and encouraging
destruction114.
Therefore, in his overview of Catiline’s
character, Sallust conditions the reader to view
Catiline as a villain. Even before failing to get elected
consul, Sallust’s version of Catiline tries to seize
power in his own way. The problem is when the
reader has to confront Sallust’s depiction of Catiline
with Sallust’s focalization of Catiline, where the
reader is able to hear the figure in his own words and
see his death portrayed in a heroic fashion, leaving
room for interpretation. Sallust turns exemplary
tradition on its head by making the so-called ‘villain’
the central figure of the work. As a result, the
113
114
50
majority of the exploration of the ideas of the preface
is done through the description and words of this
character, and he clearly does not fit into the
guidelines of the preface. Notably, neither do Caesar
and Cato.
Catiline’s Portrayal
Setting his monograph up to logically refer
back to itself, Sallust consistently uses the guidelines
he established in the preface and digressions to
illustrate the positive and negative aspects of
Catiline’s character. In fact, Krebs points out that the
portrayal of Catiline ‘continues three major aspects of
the proem (but does not form part of it)’.115 Krebs is
arguing for a different interpretation of uastus animus
in that it does not mean Catiline’s mind is ‘“awesome
or very great in range or intensity’” but ‘a man
audacious rather than courageous, and reckless rather
than resolute’.116 He adds that ‘Catiline is of the kind
Sallust approvingly sketches in the beginning of the
proem – yet one led astray’.117
115
Krebs (2008a) 682.
116
Ibid 684.
117
Ibid.
51
As mentioned in the discussion of the opening
of the monograph, one of the main antitheses is
distinction between the mind and the body. Catiline
exemplifies this antithesis. Krebs notes that Catiline’s
description continues the distinction between mind
and body that originated in the preface ‘when Sallust
first describes Catiline’s corpus as patiens inediae
algorism uigiliae, then his animus as audax subdolus
uarius.’118 Catiline himself displays the antithesis
with his mind and body, and his potential for
greatness and his potential for wickedness.
Sallust’s Catiline displays many of the
negative qualities highlighted in the preface. Catiline
has no qualms with being unjust or lawless, and he
has no self-restraint. He covets what others have.
Sallust looks back at when Rome was ruled by kings,
and he remarks that ‘at that time men’s lives were free
from covetousness; each was quite content with his
own possessions’.119 Catiline is the opposite:
‘Covetous of others’ possessions, he was prodigal of
his own; he was violent in his passions’.120 Here,
118
Krebs (2008a) 683.
119
120
Ibid 5.3-4.
52
Catiline exhibits the negative qualities that Sallust
suggests to avoid in his digression on morals. Sallust
declares that the ‘root of all evils’ is the desire for
money and the desire for power.121 Catiline’s major
fault is his desire for power and other people’s wealth.
Sallust clearly describes Catiline’s perverse
nature. According to Sallust, Catiline delighted ‘in
civil wars, murder, pillage, and political dissension’
from an early age and on into adulthood, and, though
Sallust praises Catiline’s physical capabilities, he
declares that ‘his mind was reckless, cunning,
treacherous, capable of any form of pretence or
concealment’.122 Catiline is portrayed as someone
cunning, yet he uses his intellect for treachery instead
of for good. The most telling example of this is when
Sallust writes that Catiline is a simulator ac
dissimulator. 123 This goes back to Sallust’s critique of
ambition: ‘Ambition drove many men to become
false; to have one thought locked in the breast,
another ready on the tongue’.124 Sallust warns the
121
122
Ibid 5.2-4.
123
Ibid 5.4.
124
Ibid 10.5.
53
reader not to take Catiline’s words seriously since
Catiline is corrupted by his ambition.
At the same time, Sallust is able to see more
than just the negative side of Catiline. Looking back
at Sallust’s preface, he writes about exactly what kind
of man he believes is the best. He writes that in
seeking fame, ‘we should employ the resources of the
intellect rather than those of brute strength … [so] we
may make the memory of our lives as long as
possible’.125 Though perhaps not in the way Sallust
intended, Catiline certainly made a name for himself,
and he certainly used his intelligence, though for
scheming. Sallust goes on to say that ‘man alone lives
and makes the most of life, as it seems to me, who
devotes himself to some occupation, courting the
fame of a glorious deed or a noble career’.126 Catiline
follows this advice since he seeks the consulship
multiple times and dies a glorious death. In his
description of Catiline, Sallust notes that Catiline ‘had
great vigour both of mind and of body’, and he
remarks that ‘his body could endure hunger, cold, and
125
126
Ibid 2.9.
54
want of sleep to an incredible degree’.127 Physically
and mentally, Catiline had great potential. Batstone
takes this even further when he points out that
Catiline’s strategies in battle ‘depend upon his
exercise of corporis et animi vis and the subservience
of his body to his mind’, and this is how ‘Catiline
enacts Sallustian virtues’.128 Sallust’s Catiline had
virtues as well as vices.
Though Sallust’s description of Catiline is
mainly negative, at times he allows leeway for a bit of
sympathy for Catiline. He consistently points out that
society’s morals have fallen by the wayside, and
Catiline stands out as one who goes against the grain
of society. Operating outside of the norm can
sometimes lead one to being designated a hero, but in
Catiline’s case he is considered a villain. Klapp points
out that a man’s role is created by the collective; he
‘can act in any way that he will, but only a group can
make him a hero, villain or fool’.129 Catiline, in
opposing the senate, becomes the villain.
127
Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 5.1, 5.3-4.
128
Batstone (2010) 64.
129
Klapp (1954) 57.
55
Despite being a villain, his followers certainly
believed in him. Sallust declares that even though the
senate tried to bribe someone to come forward and
betray Catiline’s plans ‘not one man of all that great
number was led by the promised reward to betray the
conspiracy, and not a single one deserted Catiline’s
camp’.130 The fact that Catiline was able to generate
such a following ‘reveals what might have otherwise
escaped record: the widespread discontent throughout
Italy, provoked by excessive disparity in the
distribution of wealth and the social and economic
chaos which was largely the result of the Sullan
settlements’.131 Catiline’s conspiracy uncovered a
larger problem and Catiline was not the only one
unhappy with the current situation. Clearly, Sallust’s
estimation of Catiline’s character and those who
followed him was negative to say the least, and this
sets up the reader’s expectations so that Catiline’s
later actions seem out of place with his character.
Somewhat surprisingly, Sallust’s self-
characterisation is also reminiscent of his depiction of
Catiline just as there were connections between the
130
131
McGushin (1980) 23.
56
narrator and Caesar and Cato, as noted above. As
Krebs observes, ‘sociologically, the conspirator (as
much as Sallust) “is a product of the times”’.132
Sallust states that he was interested in politics in his
youth, but that he ‘encountered many obstacles; for
instead of modesty, incorruptibility and honesty,
shamelessness, bribery and rapacity held sway’.133 In
Sallust’s ideal world, modesty, incorruptibility, and
honesty are the preferred characteristics associated
with those involved in public life, but his time was
characterised by shameless, bribery, and rapacity.
Among this corruption, Sallust’s ‘youthful weakness
was led astray and held captive by ambition’.134 He
wants the reader to know that he had no desire to be
associated with this wickedness, yet he was ‘the
victim of the same ill-repute and jealousy’ as others
who did take part in ‘the evil practices’.135 He casts
himself as the victim of society’s corruption, a youth
misled by his desire to take part in politics. He comes
out of the darkness when he decides to not ‘lead a life
devoted to slavish employments’ like farming or
132
Krebs (2008a) 683.
133
134
Ibid 3.4-5.
135
Ibid 3.5.
57
hunting, but to focus on writing a history of the
Roman people.136 He believes he will succeed
because his ‘mind was free from hope, and fear, and
partisanship’.137 Sallust has changed and decided to
pursue glory by another path, writing instead of
pursuing political power.
Catiline, while thriving in the wickedness of
the time, ‘was spurred on, also, by the corruption of
public morals, which were being ruined by two great
evils of an opposite character, extravagance and
avarice’.138 Catiline cannot be cast as a victim,
however. Sallust points out that Catiline ‘had great
vigour both of mind and of body, but an evil and
depraved nature’.139 By nature, Catiline was evil, but
Sallust was simply led astray. He backs this assertion
up by declaring that Catiline was wicked from a
young age because he ‘revelled in civil wars, murder,
pillage, and political dissension, and amid these he
spent his early manhood’.140 Sallust wants the reader
to have no doubts about Catiline’s nefarious nature.
136
137
Ibid 4.2-3.
138
Ibid 5.8.
139
Ibid 5.1.
140
Ibid 5.2-3.
58
This is not to say that Catiline did not have admirable
qualities. He had physical and mental potential for
changing Rome, but the problem was that he did not
use his intellect to make the state better but for his
own interests. He sought power no matter the cost.
This desire, according to Sallust, was what spurred
Catiline on to conspire against the government.141
Catiline’s Own Words

Now that the mainly negative descriptions
have been explored, one can see how Catiline’s own
words seem out of place in contrast. For one, his
speech to his followers at the start of the conspiracy is
filled with traditional Roman values as he encourages
the men to stand up for what they believe in. As
Connolly argues, ‘Catiline’s speech to his fellow
conspirators clarifies the connection linking justice,
liberty, and political recognition’.142 For example, he
points out the disparity in wealth to his followers:
‘what man with the spirit of a man can endure that our
tyrants should abound in riches, to squander in
building upon the sea and in levelling mountains,
141
142
Connolly (2014) 104.
59
while we lack the means to buy the bare necessities of
life?’143 Catiline appeals to their sense of injustice,
and he emphasises that rebelling is the only path
available to them. While the wealthy abuse their
riches, Catiline and his men ‘have destitution at home,
debt without, present misery and a still more hopeless
future’ and this leads him to ask them, ‘What have we
left, save only the wretched breath of life?’144 He fires
them up by pointing out all that they lack and guiding
them to their desire to get what they believe they
deserve. Catiline promises them ‘abolition of debts,
the proscription of the rich, offices, priesthoods,
plunder, and all the other spoils that war and the
license of victors can offer’.145 His speech makes him
appear to be someone who wants to erase his own
debts as well as theirs and who sees a flaw within
society that needs to be mended. Sallust repeatedly
highlights how the morals of society have
deteriorated, and that the corrupted morals allowed
Catiline to rise up.
143
144
Ibid 20.13-14.
145
Ibid 21.2.
60
Taken out of context, the speech sounds like
the pleas of the desperately poor fighting against the
powerful wealthy who try to keep them down.
Compared to the earlier description of him, Catiline’s
speeches reveal an entirely different person. He seems
like an individual interested in the needs of his
followers, and someone who believes in his cause.
Wilkins sees the speech not as ironic but as an
instance of foreshadowing, where ‘the Catiline that
Sallust will portray at the monograph’s end’
appears.146 Though he could simply be a persuasive
speaker who knows his audience well, Wilkins’ view
is that he is starting to transition into the admirable
leader Sallust reveals at the end of the monograph.
Taken without Sallust’s description of Catiline as a
simulator ac dissimulator, this is a plausible argument
147
to make. This is one glaring example of how
Catiline’s speech clashes with Sallust’s description of
him.
In Catiline’s second speech, he has to face
the reality of the situation he and his men are in. He
begins by acknowledging that ‘words do not supply
146
Wilkins (1994) 53.
147
61
valour, and that a spiritless army is not made
vigorous, or a timid one stout-hearted, by a speech
from its commander’.148 He has gone from a man of
words to a man of action, and as a competent
commander he is realistic about the situation that
faces him and his men. Lentulus has failed to join
them with more men, two armies were in their path,
and they have no more resources to remain where
they are: they have to fight. While Catiline cannot
give them any more valour or spirit than they already
possess, he still encourages his men. Despite the odds,
he wants them to have hope for, unlike their enemies,
they are fighting for something bigger than
themselves. As Catiline says, ‘We are battling for
country, for freedom, for life; theirs is a futile contest,
to uphold the power of a few men’.149 Like his first
speech, he is still urging that their fight is right and is
challenging the corrupt political hierarchy in Rome.
Because of this, he urges them not to back down. The
only option left to them is to fight, and to fight
bravely, because ‘nemo nisi victor pace bellum
148
149
Ibid 58.11-12.
62
mutavit’.150 The only way they can have peace and
freedom is if they win, and Catiline remains
optimistic. He has hope for victory because along
with his men’s necessitudo for victory their ‘Animus,
aetas, virtus’ encourage him.151
Both of Catiline’s speeches reveal positive
characteristics of Catiline: he has the skills of an
orator, and he displays his eloquence. This is
something that Sallust notes that Catiline in his
character sketch of Catiline: ‘He possessed a certain
amount of eloquence, but little discretion’.152 Though
lacking discretion, Catiline’s words are reminiscent of
Sallust’s own. One example is his scorn directed at
those who abuse their wealth and power.153 In his
digression on the morals of Rome, Sallust declares
that ‘a host of private men have levelled mountains
and built upon the seas’ while Catiline’s enemies
‘squander in building upon the sea and in levelling
mountains’.154 Sallust and Catiline share a scornful
150
151
Ibid 58.19.
152
Ibid 5.4-5.
153
Batstone (2010) 64.
154
Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 13.1-2 a privatis compluribus
subvorsos montis, maria constrata esse, and 20.11 produndant in
extruendo mari et montibus.
63
view of those who do not use their wealth and power
wisely.155 Along with that, the qualities he encourages
his men to have in his second speech, including
animus, virtus, and aetas, refer back to Sallust’s
language in the preface. The importance of virtus
animi is stressed throughout the preface, yet aetas is
mentioned more for the folly of Sallust’s youth and
Catiline’s.
Similar to how Sallust encourages men to be
more than mere beasts, Catiline urges his men to ‘not
be captured and slaughtered like cattle, but, fighting
like heroes, leave the enemy a bloody and tearful
victory.’156 While Catiline’s words differ and his
purpose is to inspire men whom Sallust paints as
degenerates, the ideals he emphasises are Sallustian.
As a result, Catiline’s speeches are Sallustian in much
the same way that Cato and Caesar’s words are,
which gives the reader another possible perspective
on the conspiracy. Catiline’s speeches show him to be
a competent leader fighting against the injustices of
the current political system at the same time as Sallust
155
Grethlein (2013) 276 argues that Catiline’s view ‘is not based
on a general rejection of material values’, but seems to suggest
that Catiline has other reasons for echoing Sallust’s words here.
156
Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 58.21
64
portrays him as simply someone who is self-serving
and corrupt.
Though Catiline has little in common with
Cato’s reputation, Catiline’s appeal to his followers’
libertas in both speeches has resonances with Cato’s
speech. Both ‘are fighting for libertas and over the
word libertas’.157 For example, Cato warns the senate,
libertas et anima nostra in dubio est and that he fears
because the conspirators will make war on patriae,
parentibus, aris atque focis suis.158 Meanwhile,
Catiline tells his followers before battle libertatem
atque patriam in dextris vostris portare.159 Cato wants
to protect the senate’s freedom and the fatherland. At
the same time, Catiline reminds his followers that
their only way to earn libertas is through victory, and
that freedom and the fatherland is within reach. They
are on opposing sides, yet they are aligned in their
fears and goals: on the one hand, libertas ‘means the
freedom of the senate to act with authority and
resolution, especially as it means killing the
157
Batstone (2010) 60.
158
Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 52.6, 52.3.
159
Ibid 58.8. Catiline also declares that libertas is their goal in
his first speech: En illa illa quam saepe optastis libertas,
praeterea divitiae, decus, gloria in oculis sita sunt’ (20.14).
65
conspirators; [on] the other, it means the freedom of
the poor and the wretched … and the freedom of an
aristocrat like Catiline to pursue his dignitas’.160
Besides his speeches, Catiline’s letter to
Catulus is another source of tension between Sallust’s
depiction and Catiline’s words.161 This letter is
significant because it provides the reader with a
completely different context for the conspiracy.162 In
this letter, Catiline cites his reasons for leading his
army, and he declares, ‘unable to attain to a position
of honour, I followed my usual custom and took up
the general cause of the unfortunate’.163 Remarkably,
he is honest about his intentions in that he cares more
about his honour than in taking up the publicam
miserorum causam. Catiline’s honest declaration of
160
Batstone (2010) 60.
161
Unlike the speeches, which Sallust writes for these characters,
Grethlein (2013) 286-7, following Schnorr von Carolsfeld
(1888), argues that the letter should be viewed as ‘the undigested
integration of an original document into the narrative’ due to the
usage of several words and structures that are uncharacteristic of
Sallust. This would explain why there is a discrepancy between
the version of the conspiracy Catiline’s letter provides and the
version Sallust supplies. This dissertation will not seek to argue
whether the letter was Catiline’s but will use its contents to show
how Sallust integrates multiple perspectives of the conspiracy
within his own work.
162
163
66
his motives is even more striking when taken in light
of Sallust’s complaint about politicians.164 Sallust
complains they were working ‘under the pretence of
public welfare’, yet ‘each in reality was working for
his own advancement’.165 Catiline seems quite honest
compared to other political figures. His words make
him appear more like a man reacting to a desperate
situation than one who has long been scheming for the
demise of the state.
Catiline’s letter goes against Sallust’s view of
the conspiracy in other ways as well. Sallust cites
Catiline’s debt as one of his motives: he ‘was goaded
more and more every day by poverty’.166 Yet, Catiline
denies this as one of his motives, telling Catulus, ‘“[it
is] not that I could not pay my personal debts from my
own estate”’.167 Though this could be to save himself
from further damages to his reputation, Catiline
portrays himself as someone confident in his finances.
Besides his own estate, he admits that he could make
164
Grethlein (2013) 286-7 declares that this is just another mask,
however.
165
166
Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 5.7 (Grethlein (2013) 284 points out
the contrast between 35.3 and 5.7, but he does not add in the
text, which I have added using Rolfe’s translation as with all
other Sallust translations.)
167
67
use of ‘“the liberality of Orestilla sufficed with her
own and her daughter’s resources to pay off even the
obligations incurred through others”’.168 These are
bold claims for someone supposedly goaded by
poverty, which surprises the reader as this instance
shows Sallust’s summation of events being contrasted
with his character’s words.
To summarise, the Catiline the readers expect
to see from his first description is not the same person
he seems in his speeches and his letter. Instead of a
deeply evil man motivated by his own desires, he
appears to be someone who has considered his
options and taken the path left open to him, though it
may not be the most desirable one. Unlike Sallust,
who can go back and rationalise his decision, Catiline
puts all of his effort into one last act to make a name
for himself.
The Last Battle

Along with Catiline’s spurring speech before
the battle, his conduct in battle was quite noble. The
reader sees that even Catiline’s enemies acknowledge
that he is a capable leader. Petreius, the opposing
168
68
leader, was hard-pressed to defeat Catiline in battle.
Sallust writes that ‘Petreius saw that Catiline was
making so much stronger a fight than he had
expected’.169 Though Petreius did not expect a strong
fight, he admits that Catiline and his army were
fighting well. Sallust includes a perspective of
Catiline that is favourable by showing that he stands
out in battle, even though this is fight with Romans on
both sides.
Though Catiline put up a fight, Sallust makes
it clear that Catiline knows he would not win. In spite
of this, Catiline ‘plunged into the thickest of the
enemy and there fell fighting, his body pierced
through and through’.170 Like a true Roman, he
refused to surrender and accepted his death. This
makes Catiline a bit heroic. Campbell, in his
discussion of the hero, states that ‘the hero would be
no hero if death held for him any terror’.171 Catiline
chooses to embrace death and to go down fighting. In
this way, his death is emblematic of his status as a
Roman. He fights for what he believes in, and despite
169
Sallust Bellum Catilinae 60.5.
170
Ibid 60.7.
171
Campbell (1972) 356.
69
losing, he refuses to back down. Campbell also writes
that ‘the last act in the biography of the hero is that of
the death or departure. Here the whole sense of the
life is epitomised’.172 Following this, how could
Catiline not be a hero? Though defeated, his death is
heroic.
Another way to look at this would be to
declare Catiline a tragic hero, a flawed man who
seeks what he believes to be his only option and
claims to be fighting for a larger cause. In this way,
Catiline becomes a symbol of every man who fights
against the status quo: he represents something
inherently human. McCollom argues that the tragic
hero ‘is like all other men in that he is guilty of
wrongdoing’, yet the tragic hero’s ‘guilt is difficult or
impossible for him to avoid if he is to pursue the
values he treasures’.173 Catiline seeks the consulship,
yet he was prevented multiple times either by his past
or by other competitors. To get what he desired, he
chose to go around the typical system of acquiring
power in Rome through the senate and decided to try
to take matters into his own hands.
172
Campbell (1972) 356.
173
McCollom (1957) 55.
70
Thinking of Catiline as a tragic hero is not to
say that Catiline is did not commit his crimes, but that
he is essentially a ‘guilty hero’, one whose ‘role is
fundamentally though not exclusively a guilty one, so
that we are easily able to attribute his downfall to
wrongful behaviour’.174 Catiline’s defeat is expected
in Sallust’s monograph, but the question is whether
Sallust wants the reader to feel sympathy for Catiline.
If society itself is corrupt, why is someone who seeks
to change things at fault? Perhaps Catiline does not go
about it in the most moral of ways, but at least he is
choosing the path of action rather than idleness.
McCollom speaks of the hubris of the tragic hero and
poses a pertinent question: ‘Did he fall simply
because he was too successful, too eminent, or
because his eminence went along with a proud
determination to be more impressive than is right or
fitting?’175 Catiline sought change, but he seeks to
upset the traditional political hierarchy. Sallust’s
monograph emphasises the need for change at the
same time as it illuminates the wrong path that
Catiline took. Catiline’s conspiracies revealed the
174
McCollom (1957) 52.
175
Ibid 51.
71
depth of the flaws within Rome to those in power, and
he could not solve the problems and neither could the
senate at this point. The last lines of the monograph
do not bring any closure to the situation, and there is
not much celebration for Catiline’s defeat: ‘Thus the
whole army was variously affected with sorrow and
grief, rejoicing and lamentation’.176 Romans killing
Romans was not something to be celebrated, and
though Catiline was defeated, nothing actually had
changed. There were still problems within the
Republic.
At the end of his life then, Catiline is more of
a tragic hero than a villain. Found on the battlefield
barely breathing, Catiline maintains ‘the indomitable
spirit which had animated him when alive’.177 Kraus
and Woodman state that ‘there seems no doubt that at
the very end he has become a “tragic hero”’ due to
how the reader has been influenced to feel sympathy
for Catiline.178 One might argue that whilst his death
has been described in heroic terms, his actions in life
can also be considered tragically heroic. Sallust seems
176
Sallust Bellum Catilinae 61.9.
177
Ibid 61.4-5.
178
Kraus and Woodman (1997) 20.
72
to admire Catiline’s fighting abilities as well as his
death in battle. Catiline courageously charges in
despite the inevitability of his defeat. Sallust cites
Catiline’s former rank and birth as the motive as
Catiline ‘plunged into the thickest of the enemy and
there fell fighting, his body pierced through and
through’.179 Catiline refused to surrender and died
fighting to the last second, as he ‘was found far in
advance of his men amid a heap of slain
foemen’.180Catiline keeps his word to his men,181
telling his followers in his first speech, ‘Use me either
as your leader or as a soldier in the ranks; my soul and
my body shall be at your service’.182 He does not lead
by simply sitting behind his men and directing them,
but he charges into battle to lead by example. Sallust
portrays him as a competent commander and soldier:
he ‘had an eye to everything, and at the same time
fought hard himself, often striking down the foe—
thus performing at once the duties of a valiant soldier
179
180
Ibid 61.4.
181
Wilkins (1994) 49, and Grethlein (2013) 288 both note that
Catiline maintains the idea in his first speech that he will serve as
general and soldier.
182
73
and of a skilful leader’.183 This is commendable for
someone who at the start of the monograph was
characterised mainly for his ‘evil and depraved
nature’.184
He may have been reckless, but he died
valiantly.185 Catiline and his followers were bold, just
like the early Republic that Sallust praises so
highly.186 Sallust approves of the audacia in bello of
the past.187 Meanwhile, Catiline’s army is
commended for quanta audacia quantaque animi
vis.188 Besides the reference to Rome’s ancestors’
similarly positive qualities in warfare, Sallust
consistently emphasises the importance of vis animi in
battle.189 Despite the majority of negative direct
183
184
Ibid 5.1.
185
BC 20.9 ‘Is it not better to die valiantly than ignominiously to
lose our wretched and dishonoured lives after being the sport of
others’ insolence?’ Sallust says that Catiline’s ‘mind was
reckless’ in 5.4.
186
Kraus and Woodman (1997) 20 compare Catiline’s enemy
and its quanta audacia to the early Republic and its audacia in
bello.
187
188
Ibid 61.1.
189
Ibid 1.5-7 discusses ‘virtute animi res militaris’, 2.2 considers
to ingenium ‘in bello’, and 2.3 addresses how ‘animi virtus in
pace ita ut in bello’. The mental excellence or strength is
important to Sallust, and vis animi seems to be essential in battle.
Noted, Sallust acknowledges Catiline’s vis animi et corporis in
74
characterisation of Catiline, the battle scene displays a
discrepancy between the Catiline the reader would
expect Sallust to portray and the one he reveals at the
end of the monograph.
Inherently Roman Catiline

Sallust’s digression on the founding of Rome
and its development thereafter supports the argument
that Rome was an inherently militaristic state190. In
describing Rome’s virtuous past, Sallust notes that the
Romans fought for glory the most with one another as
‘each man strove to be the first to strike down the foe,
to scale a wall, to be seen of all while doing such a
deed’.191 Rome’s greatness lies largely in military
success. Following this view of Rome as a highly
militarised state, Catiline’s decision to seize power by
force makes sense within the context Sallust
5.1, but that is Sallust directly telling the reader of this

characteristic. It is not until this final battle that Sallust provides
a strong example of this previously admitted quality.
190
Wood (1995) uses Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae to explore metus
hostilis as a theme in political science, yet for classics this idea is
not new. Wood uses his analysis of Sallust to connect to the
political theories of Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Bodin. His article
adds to the view of Rome as a highly militarised state, making
Catiline’s decision to use force inherently Roman.
191
75
provides.192 Essentially, his decision was inherently
Roman. He is struggling for glory against other
Romans.
Certainly, there was more or less precedent for
his actions, though not the senate’s preferred route to
power. Sallust routinely brings up the example of
Sulla, and the Gracchi are also mentioned. Sulla, in
fact, is cited by Sallust as an inspiration for Catiline.
Sallust writes, ‘After the domination of Lucius Sulla
the man had been seized with a mighty desire of
getting control of the government’ and was willing to
use any means necessary.193 Rome itself was founded
on violence with fratricide. Violence, then, is
sometimes the answer, especially if that violence
restores the security of the state. Arguably, Caesar is
not so different from Catiline, except he was more
successful.
Similarly, civil war is part of Roman nature, or
more accurately, it is the very pillar of Rome’s
192
Noted, this behaviour goes against the models of the Roman
ancestors, such as Cincinnatus and Publius Valerius Publicola
who did submit themselves to the will of the state. Sallust
strongly urges men to work for the benefit of the state, and he
despairs that in contemporary times there seem to be a lack of
men willing to do so. As a result, Sallustian Catiline adheres to
this perspective.
193
76
foundation. Batstone argues that civil war is often
defined ‘as inherently Roman, an ancestral curse that
requires bloodletting’ and that ‘the war with Catiline
was for Sallust clearly a civil war’.194 Civil war turns
society upside down as it pits citizen against citizen.
To Batstone, while war may be the appropriate place
for Sallust to turn ‘virtus into bellum… that is the
problem: in bellum civilie, virtus is killing
Romans’.195 Their own values are used against them.
Batstone argues that Sallust’s morals ‘fail on the field
of civil war’.196 His reason is that Romans were
fighting Romans, so even though they won, it was a
‘cruel victory’.197 In their final stand, Catiline and his
men epitomised Roman values, but they still lost. The
side that won did so to defend the Republic, but the
Republic itself is corrupt. Batstone’s pessimistic view
suggests that the victory did not seem to matter if
Romans were fighting themselves. His view makes
sense with the lack of closure Sallust provides.198
194
Batstone (2010) 51.
195
Ibid 54.
196
Ibid 65.
197
Ibid.
198
Pagán (2004) 41 states the narrative has closure, but there is
no emotional stability. I argue that the narrative does not have
77
Sallust ends with the mixed feelings of the victors:
they ‘gained no joyful nor bloodless victory’ and ‘the
whole army was variously affected with sorrow and
grief, rejoicing and lamentation’.199 Catiline was
defeated, but the problems that he was fighting
against and the corruption that allowed him to gain a
following were not.
A key part of Batstone’s argument is that
Catiline does not merely sound like Sallust and ‘an
exemplary Roman general, but he also fights and dies
like one, mindful of his family and his own pristine
dignity’.200 Maintaining one’s dignitas is a significant
motivating factor for Romans. In fact, Grethlein
proclaims that dignitas is the ‘“most central principle
of the res publica’”.201 After all, dignitas is what
Caesar used to legitimise his ctions.202 Caesar refused
to let anyone insult his dignitas. However, Catiline
cannot lay the same claim to dignitas as Caesar:
the kind of closure the reader would expect with how much
detail the preface contains.
199
200
Batstone (2010) 65.
201
Grethlein (2013) 284 notes this as well as C. Francese (2007)
127, who declares that Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his army
‘to prevent such a humiliating loss of dignitas’.
202
78
Caesar has far more to show for his dignitas
than Catiline, but nonetheless Catiline invokes
a concept that is at the core of Rome’s
political infrastructure.203
This appeal to dignitas showcases Catiline in a

different light. While embedding him deep into the
reality of the political struggle in Rome, it also recasts
him from being a villain so that ‘Instead of being the
embodiment and culmination of Rome’s moral
decline, Catiline can also be seen as an aristocrat
whose concern with his dignitas drives him to
challenge the Republic, no unlike Caesar fourteen
years later when he crossed the Rubicon’.204
Essentially, Catiline ‘was no better or worse than
many others who had a share in the Roman
Revolution’, including the Gracchi, Marius, Pompey,
and Crassus, and ‘Julius Caesar, too, participated in it
and finally achieved much of the reform program that
Catiline had hoped to put into effect’.205 Caesar,
though he had more of a positive reputation to start
with, ended up taking over Rome similar to Catiline’s
attempted route.
203
204
Ibid 289.
205
Kaplan (1968) 15.
79
In addition to his death, there are two notable
instances where Catiline seeks to prevent damage to
his reputation in the Bellum Catilinae. In Catiline’s
brief appearance before the senate, he begs the senate
‘not to believe any unfounded charge against him’,
and as he says, ‘he was sprung from such a family …
and had so ordered his life from youth up, that he had
none save the best of prospects’.206 After they refuse
to listen to his pleas, he declares that he has been
‘“brought to bay by [his] enemies and driven
desperate”’.207 As a result, he prepares to leave Rome.
First, though, he pens the letter to Catulus. In the
letter, he specifically refers to dignitas: …quod fructu
laboris industriaeque meae privatus statum dignitatis
non optinebam…208 Here, he bemoans his inability to
earn dignitas: Catiline is seeking dignitas, unlike
Caesar who has already made a reputation for himself.
Regardless, his desire for dignitas is part of what
drives him, and this makes him well-suited for
showcasing Sallust’s ideals. He prioritises his mind
over his body and he seeks personal glory through a
206
207
Ibid 31.9.
208
Ibid 35.3.
80
noble career, yet he attempts to seize power by force,
which is where he put himself above the desires of the
country, at least in the senate’s eyes.
Conclusion
Having analysed the importance of the preface
and how it sets up the narrative, the speeches and
synkrisis of Cato and Caesar, and the multi-facted
depiction of Catiline, there is still the seemingly
irresolvable conflict between perceptions of virtus and
Roman-ness in Sallust’s monograph. Scanlon notes
that the preface ‘obviously recommends that men
strive for virtus’.209 However, Sallust’s depiction of
Caesar, Cato, and Catiline has demonstrated that the
idea of virtus is more complex than the ideals
presented in the preface. The monograph starts out
with a seemingly clear view of where Rome has gone
wrong, but then there is no concluding element to
wrap up this view. The reader has to process the lack
of closure, which leaves the reader with mixed
emotions just like the victorious Romans. What is the
209
Scanlon (1987) 16, McGushin (1977) 29 states that scholars
face two major problems: the relevance of the preface to the rest
of the monograph and the sources of the ideas in the preface.
81
reader supposed to make of the ending Sallust
provides?210 Scanlon’s interpretation is that after
reading the narrative, the reader has to reconcile ‘the
virtus innate in man with the very grim and violent
reality of history’.211 Perhaps this is part of the central
message of Sallust—that virtus and these other
Roman virtues are excellent goals to strive for, but
ultimately they are unattainable. The reader has to
come to terms with more than just the reality of
history: the reader has to understand the reality of
Roman values.
Part of the problem with closure is that the
values themselves are increasingly complex in the
Bellum Catilinae. McGushin argues that Sallust lacks
precision in his use of virtus as a term, and he
attributes this, at least in part, to the difficulty of
defining virtus.212 For many scholars, McGushin
included, virtus is the governing principle of the
preface as well as the prime concept of Sallust’s
210
Connolly (2014) 89-90 notes that while Sallust was writing,
‘justice was thrown into disarray by the assassination of Julius
Caesar, when the progression of events raised urgent,
increasingly baffling questions about justice and the closure it
brings.’ Here, Catiline is defeated, but how do the Romans pick
up the pieces? Has anything really been solved?
211
Scanlon (1987) 16.
212
McGushin (1977) 30.
82
thought. While the preface lays out the philosophical
aspects of virtus, the monograph elaborates on this
term, especially with the depiction of the corrupted
virtus of Catiline and the comparison of virtus present
in Cato and Caesar. These character depictions
demonstrate ‘the dynamic quality of virtus’ as well as
‘Sallust’s fascination with personalities that are
compounded of both good and evil’.213 Following
along these lines, this dissertation has shown how
Caesar and Cato’s distinct versions of virtus and the
grey areas of Catiline reveal that virtues are much
more complex in the cesspool of politics. There is no
singular model of Sallustian ideals. None of these
characters can fit into the strict guidelines Sallust laid
out in the preface because the guidelines prove to be
unattainable for an individual to fully adhere to.
Much of Sallust’s portrayal of these characters
boils down to a few lines:
the noble and the base alike long for glory,
honour, and power, but the former mount by
the true path, whereas the latter, being
213
Kraus and Woodman (1997) 11.
83
destitute of noble qualities, rely upon craft and
deception.214
Sallust would have the reader see Caesar and Cato as
the noble and Catiline as the base. After all, Cato and
Caesar try to take the ‘true path’ while Catiline uses
trickery, yet none of them live up to Sallust’s
expectations. His youthful idealism in the preface
seems to lose on the battlefield just like Catiline. Cato
and Caesar highlight Sallust’s virtues in their
speeches, yet even they fail to put the state above their
separate interests. The two men of virtus speak about
the same ideals as Sallust does, but the main character
that portrays all of these virtues, as well as vices, is
Catiline. Through Catiline, the reader is able to
become part of the corrupt world Sallust envisions.
214
84
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Sallust and Romulus Cesspool - Ideals and Characters in The Bellum Catilinae

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Sallust and Romulus’ Cesspool: Ideals

and Characters in the Bellum

A dissertation submitted to the University of

School of Arts, Languages, and Cultures

Word count: 14, 948

Their take is that Sallust is trying to teach and even

portrayal of characters and not his sources of ideas, but Sallust’s

The kings, however, were fine rulers until the

To summarise, Sallust values the mind over the body,

Caesar and Cato

Roles in the Bellum Catilinae

Cato’s Speech and Description

Two Men with Virtus

The Typical View of Catiline

Catiline’s Own Words

The Last Battle

Inherently Roman Catiline

5.1, but that is Sallust directly telling the reader of this

This appeal to dignitas showcases Catiline in a

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