Conspiracy of Catiline and the Jurgurthine War Part 3

LV. When the senate, as I have stated, had gone over to the opinion of Cato, the counsel, thinking it best not to wait till night, which was coming on, lest any new attempts should be made during the interval, ordered the triumvirs[274] to make such preparations as the execution of the conspirators required. He himself, having posted the necessary guards, conducted Lentulus to the prison; and the same office was performed for the rest by the praetors. There is a place in the prison, which is called the Tullian dungeon,[275] and which, after a slight ascent to the left, is sunk about twelve feet under ground.

Walls secure it on every side, and over it is a vaulted roof connected with stone arches;[276] but its appearance is disgusting and horrible, by reason of the filth, darkness, and stench. When Lentulus had been let down into this place, certain men, to whom orders had been given,[277] strangled him with a cord. Thus this patrician, who was of the ill.u.s.trious family of the Cornelii, and who filled the office of consul at Rome, met with an end suited to his character and conduct.

On Cethegus, Statilius, Gabinius, and Coeparius, punishment was inflicted in a similar manner.

LVI. During these proceedings at Rome, Catiline, out of the entire force which he himself had brought with him, and that which Manlius had previously collected, formed two legions, filling up the cohorts as far as his number would allow;[278] and afterward, as any volunteers, or recruits from his confederates,[279] arrived in his camp, he distributed them equally throughout the cohorts, and thus filled up his legions, in a short time, with their regular number of men, though at first he had not more than two thousand. But, of his whole army, only about a fourth part had the proper weapons of soldiers; the rest, as chance had equipped them, carried darts, spears, or sharpened stakes.

As Antonius approached with his army, Catiline directed his march over the hills, encamping, at one time, in the direction of Rome, at another in that of Gaul. He gave the enemy no opportunity of fighting, yet hoped himself shortly to find one,[280] if his accomplices at Rome should succeed in their objects. Slaves, meanwhile, of whom vast numbers [281] had at first flocked to him, he continued to reject, not only as depending on the strength of the conspiracy, but as thinking it impolitic [282] to appear to share the cause of citizens with runagates.

LVII. When it was reported in his camp, however, that the conspiracy had been discovered at Rome, and that Lentulus, Cethegus, and the rest whom I have named, had been put to death, most of those whom the hope of plunder, or the love of change, had led to join in the war, fell away. The remainder Catiline conducted, over rugged mountains, and by forced marches, into the neighborhood of Pistoria, with a view to escape covertly, by cross roads, into Gaul.

But Quintus Metellus Celer, with a force of three legions, had at that time, his station in Picenum, who suspected that Catiline, from the difficulties of his position, would adopt precisely the course which we have just described. When, therefore, he had learned his route from some deserters, he immediately broke up his camp, and took his post at the very foot of the hills, at the point where Catiline's descent would be, in his hurried march into Gaul[283]. Nor was Antonius far distant, as he was pursuing, though with, a large army, yet through plainer ground, and with fewer hinderances, the enemy in retreat.[284]

Catiline, when he saw that he was surrounded by mountains and by hostile forces, that his schemes in the city had been unsuccessful, and that there was no hope either of escape or of succor, thinking it best, in such circ.u.mstances, to try the fortune of a battle, resolved upon engaging, as speedily as possible, with Antonius. Having, therefore, a.s.sembled his troops, he addressed them in the following manner:

LVIII. "I am well aware, soldiers, that words can not inspire courage; and that a spiritless army can not be rendered active,[285] or a timid army valiant, by the speech of its commander. Whatever courage is in the heart of a man, whether from nature or from habit, so much will be shown by him in the field; and on him whom neither glory nor danger can move, exhortation is bestowed in vain; for the terror in his breast stops his ears.

I have called you together, however, to give you a few instructions, and to explain to you, at the same time, my reasons for the course which I have adopted. You all know, soldiers, how severe a penalty the inactivity and cowardice of Lentulus has brought upon himself and us; and how, while waiting for reinforcements from the city, I was unable to march into Gaul.

In what situation our affairs now are, you all understand as well as myself. Two armies of the enemy, one on the side of Rome, and the other on that of Gaul, oppose our progress; while the want of corn, and of other necessaries, prevents us from remaining, however strongly we may desire to remain, in our present position. Whithersoever we would go, we must open a pa.s.sage with our swords. I conjure you, therefore, to maintain a brave and resolute spirit; and to remember, when you advance to battle, that on your own right hands depend[286]

riches, honor, and glory, with the enjoyment of your liberty and of your country. If we conquer, all will be safe; we shall have provisions in abundance; and the colonies and corporate towns will open their gates to us. But if we lose the victory through want of courage, these same places[287] will turn against us; for neither place nor friend will protect him whom his arms have not protected.

Besides, soldiers, the same exigency does not press upon our adversaries, as presses upon us; we fight for our country, for our liberty, for our life; they contend for what but little concerns them,[288] the power of a small party. Attack them, therefore, with so much the greater confidence, and call to mind your achievements of old.

We might,[289] with the utmost ignominy, have pa.s.sed the rest of our days in exile. Some of you, after losing your property, might have waited at Rome for a.s.sistance from others. But because such a life, to men of spirit, was disgusting and unendurable, you resolved upon your present course. If you wish to quit it, you must exert all your resolution, for none but conquerors have exchanged war for peace. To hope for safety in flight, when you have turned away from the enemy the arms by which the body is defended, is indeed madness. In battle, those who are most afraid are always in most danger; but courage is equivalent to a rampart. When I contemplate you, soldiers, and when I consider your past exploits, a strong hope of victory animates me.

Your spirit, your age, your valor, give me confidence; to say nothing of necessity, which makes even cowards brave. To prevent the numbers of the enemy from surrounding us, our confined situation is sufficient. But should Fortune be unjust to your valor, take care not to lose your lives unavenged; take care not to be taken and butchered like cattle, rather than fighting like men, to leave to your enemies a b.l.o.o.d.y and mournful victory."

LIX. When he had thus spoken, he ordered, after a short delay, the signal for battle to be sounded, and led down his troops, in regular order, to the level ground. Having then sent away the horses of all the cavalry, in order to increase the men's courage by making their danger equal, he himself, on foot, drew up his troops suitably to their numbers and the nature of the ground. As a plain stretched between the mountains on the left, with a rugged rock on the right, he placed eight cohorts in front, and stationed the rest of his force, in close order, in the rear.[290] From among these he removed all the ablest centurions,[291] the veterans,[293] and the stoutest of the common soldiers that were regularly armed, into the foremost ranks.[293] He ordered Caius Manlius to take the command on the right, and a certain officer of Faesulae[294] on the left; while he himself, with his freedmen[295] and the colonists,[296] took his station by the eagle,[297] which Caius Marius was said to have had in his army in the Cimbrian war.

On the other side, Caius Antonius, who, being lame,[298] was unable to be present in the engagement, gave the command of the army to Marcus Petreius, his lieutenant-general. Petreius, ranged the cohorts of veterans, which he had raised to meet the present insurrection,[299]

in front, and behind them the rest of his force in lines. Then, riding round among his troops, and addressing his men by name, he encouraged them, and bade them remember that they were to fight against unarmed marauders, in defense of their country, their children, their temples, and their homes.[300] Being a military man, and having served with great reputation, for more than thirty years, as tribune, praefect, lieutenant, or praetor, he knew most of the soldiers and their honorable actions, and, by calling these to their remembrance, roused the spirits of the men.

LX. When he had made a complete survey, he gave the signal with the trumpet, and ordered the cohorts to advance slowly. The army of the enemy followed his example; and when they approached so near that the action could be commenced by the light-armed troops, both sides, with a loud shout, rushed together in a furious charge.[301] They threw aside their missiles, and fought only with their swords. The veterans, calling to mind their deeds of old, engaged fiercely in the closest combat. The enemy made an obstinate resistance; and both sides contended with the utmost fury. Catiline, during this time, was exerting himself with his light troops in the front, sustaining such as were pressed, subst.i.tuting fresh men for the wounded, attending to every exigency, charging in person, wounding many an enemy, and performing at once the duties of a valiant soldier and a skillful general.

When Petreius, contrary to his expectation, found Catiline attacking him with such impetuosity, he led his praetorian cohort against the centre of the enemy, among whom, being thus thrown into confusion, and offering but partial resistance,[302] he made great slaughter, and ordered, at the same time, an a.s.sault on both flanks. Manlius and the Faesulan, sword in hand, were among the first[303] that fell; and Catiline, when he saw his army routed, and himself left with but few supporters, remembering his birth and former dignity, rushed into the thickest of the enemy, where he was slain, fighting to the last.

LXI. When the battle was over, it was plainly seen what boldness, and what energy of spirit, had prevailed throughout the army of Catiline; for, almost every where, every soldier, after yielding up his breath, covered with his corpse the spot which he had occupied when alive. A few, indeed, whom the praetorian cohort had dispersed, had fallen somewhat differently, but all with wounds in front. Catiline himself was found, far in advance of his men, among the dead bodies of the enemy; he was not quite breathless, and still expressed in his countenance the fierceness of spirit which he had shown during his life. Of his whole army, neither in the battle, nor in flight, was any free-born citizen made prisoner, for they had spared their own lives no more than those of the enemy.

Nor did the army of the Roman people obtain a joyful or bloodless victory; for all their bravest men were either killed in the battle, or left the field severely wounded.

Of many who went from the camp to view the ground, or plunder the slain, some, in turning over the bodies of the enemy, discovered a friend, others an acquaintance, others a relative; some, too, recognized their enemies. Thus, gladness and sorrow, grief and joy, were variously felt throughout the whole army.

NOTES.

[1] I. Desire to excel other animals--_Sese student praestare caeteris animalibus._ The p.r.o.noun, which is usually omitted, is, says Cortius, not without its force; for it is equivalent to _ut ipsi_: student _ut ipsi praestent_. In support of his opinion he quotes, with other pa.s.sages, Plaut. Asinar. i. 3, 31: Vult placere sese amicae, i.e. vult _ut ipse amicae placeat_; and Coelius Antipater apud Festum in "Topper," Ita uti sese quisque vobis studeat aemulari, i.e.

_studeat ut ipse aemuletur._ This explanation is approved by Bernouf.

Cortius might have added Cat. 7: _sese_ quisque hostem _ferire --properabat._ "Student," Cortius interprets by "cupiunt."

[2] To the utmost of their power--_Summa ope_, with their utmost ability. "A Sall.u.s.tian mode of expression. Cicero would have said _summa opera, summo studio, summa contentione._ Ennius has '_Summa nituntur opum vi_.'" Colerus.

[3] In obscurity--_Silentio._ So as to have nothing said of them, either during their lives or at their death. So in c. 2: _Eorum ego vitam mortemque juxta aestumo, quoniam de utraque siletur_. When Ovid says, _Bene qui latuit, bene vixit,_ and Horace, _Nec vixit male, qui vivens moriensque fefellit,_ they merely signify that he has some comfort in life, who, in ign.o.ble obscurity, escapes trouble and censure. But men thus undistinguished are, in the estimation of Sall.u.s.t, little superior to the brute creation. "Optimus quisque,"

says Muretus, quoting Cicero, "honoris et gloriae studio maxime ducitur;" the ablest men are most actuated by the desire of honor and glory, and are more solicitous about the character which they will bear among posterity. With reason, therefore, does Pallas, in the Odyssey, address the following exhortation to Telemachus:

"Hast thou not heard how young Orestes, fir'd With great revenge, immortal praise acquir'd?

O greatly bless'd with ev'ry blooming grace, With equal steps the paths of glory trace!

Join to that royal youth's your rival name, And shine eternal in the sphere of fame."

[4] Like the beasts of the field--_Veluti pecora._ Many translators have rendered _pecora_ "brutes" or "beasts;" _pecus_, however, does not mean brutes in general, but answers to our English word _cattle_.

[5] Groveling--_p.r.o.na._ I have adopted _groveling_ from Mair's old translation. _p.r.o.nus_, stooping _to the earth_, is applied to _cattle_, in opposition to _erectus_, which is applied to _man_; as in the following lines of Ovid, Met. i.:

"_p.r.o.na_ que c.u.m spectent animalia caetera terram, Os homini sublime dedit, coelumque tueri Jussit, et _erectos_ ad sidera tollere vultus."

"--while the mute creation downward bend Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend, Man looks aloft, and with erected eyes Beholds his own hereditary skies." _Dryden._

Which Milton (Par. L. vii. 502) has paraphrased:

"There wanted yet the master-work, the end Of all yet done; a creature, who not _p.r.o.ne And 'brute as other creatures_, but endued With sanct.i.ty of reason, might _erect_ _His stature_, and _upright with front serene_ Govern the rest, self-knowing, and from thence Magnanimous to correspond with heaven."

"Nonne vides hominum ut celsos ad sidera vultus Sustulerit Deus, et sublimia fluxerit ora, c.u.m pecudes, voluerumque genus, formasque ferarum, Segnem atque obscoenam pa.s.sim stravisset in alvum."

"See'st thou not how the Deity has rais'd The countenance of man erect to heav'n, Gazing sublime, while p.r.o.ne to earth he bent Th' inferior tribes, reptiles, and pasturing herds, And beasts of prey, to appet.i.te enslav'd"

"When Nature," says Cicero, de Legg. i. 9, "had made other animals abject, and consigned them to the pastures, she made man alone upright, and raised him to the contemplation of heaven, as of his birthplace and former abode;" a pa.s.sage which Dryden seems to have had in his mind when he translated the lines of Ovid cited above. Let us add Juvenal, xv, 146.

"Sensum a coelesti demissum traximus arce, Cujus egent p.r.o.na et terram spectantia."

"To us is reason giv'n, of heav'nly birth, Denied to beasts, that p.r.o.ne regard the earth."

[6] All our power is situate in the mind and in the body--_Sed omnis nostra vis in animo et corpore sita_. All our power is placed, or consists, in our mind and our body. The particle _sed,_ which is merely a connective, answering to the Greek _de_, and which would be useless in an English translation, I have omitted.

[7] Of the mind we--employ the government--_Animi imperio--utimur_.

"What the Deity is in the universe, the mind is in man; what matter is to the universe, the body is to us; let the worse, therefore, serve the better."--Sen. Epist. lxv. _Dux et imperator vitae mortalium animus est,_ the mind is the guide and ruler of the life of mortals.

--Jug. c. 1. "An animal consists of mind and body, of which the one is formed by nature to rule, and the other to obey."--Aristot. Polit.

i. 5. Muretus and Graswinckel will supply abundance of similar pa.s.sages.

[8] Of the mind we rather employ the government; of the body, the service--_Animi imperio, corporis servitio, magis utimur_. The word _magis_ is not to be regarded as useless. "It signifies," says Cortius, "that the mind rules, and the body obeys, _in general_, and _with greater reason_." At certain times the body may _seem to have the mastery_, as when we are under the irresistible influence of hunger or thirst.

[9] It appears to me, therefore, more reasonable, etc.--_Quo mihi rectius videtur_, etc. I have rendered _quo_ by _therefore_. "_Quo_,"

observes Cortius, "is _propter quod_, with the proper force of the ablative case. So Jug. c. 84: _Quo_ mihi acrius adnitendum est, etc; c. 2, _Quo_ magis pravitas eorum admiranda est. Some expositors would force us to believe that these ablatives are inseparably connected with the comparative degree, as in _quo minus, eo major_, and similar expressions; whereas common sense shows that they can not be so connected." Kritzius is one of those who interprets in the way to which Cortius alludes, as if the drift of the pa.s.sage were, _Quanto magis animus corpori praestat, tanto rectius ingenii opibus gloriam quaerere_. But most of the commentators and translators rightly follow Cortius. "_Quo_," says Pappaur, "is for _quocirca_."

[10] _That of_ intellectual power is ill.u.s.trious and immortal--_Virtus clara aeternaque habetur_. The only one of our English translators who has given the right sense of _virtus_ In this pa.s.sage, is Sir Henry Steuart, who was guided to it by the Abbe Thyvon and M. Beauzee.

"It appears somewhat singular," says Sir Henry, "that none of the numerous translators of Sall.u.s.t, whether among ourselves or among foreign nations--the Abbe Thyvon and M. Beauzee excepted--have thought of giving to the word _virtus_, in this place, what so obviously is the meaning intended by the historian; namely, 'genius, ability, distinguished talents.'" Indeed, the whole tenor of the pa.s.sage, as well as the scope of the context, leaves no room to doubt the fact. The main objects of comparison, throughout the three first sections of this Proemium, or introductory discourse, are not vice and virtue, but body and mind; a listless indolence, and a vigorous, honorable activity.

On this account it is pretty evident, that by _virtus_ Sall.u.s.t could never mean the [Greek _aretae_], 'virtue or moral worth,' but that he had in his eye the well-known interpretation of Varro, who considers it _ut viri vis_ (De Ling. Lat. iv.), as denoting the useful energy which enn.o.bles a man, and should chiefly distinguish him among his fellow-creatures. In order to be convinced of the justice of this rendering, we need only turn to another pa.s.sage of our author, in the second section of the Proemium to the Jugurthine War, where the same train of thought is again pursued, although he gives it somewhat a different turn in the piece last mentioned. The object, notwithstanding, of both these dissertations is to ill.u.s.trate, in a striking manner, the pre-eminence of the mind over extrinsic advantage, or bodily endowments, and to show that it is by genius alone that we may aspire to a reputation which shall never die. "_Igitur praeclara facies, magnae divitiae, adhuc vis corporis, et alia hujusmondi omnia, brevi dilabuntur: at ingenii egregia facinora, sicut anima, immortalia sunt_".

[11] It is necessary to plan before beginning to act--_Priusquam incipias, consulto--opus est_. Most translators have rendered _consulto_ "deliberation," or something equivalent; but it is _planning_ or _contrivance_ that is signified. Demosthenes, in his Oration _de Pace_, reproaches the Athenians with acting without any settled plan: [Greek: _Oi men gar alloi puntes anthropoi pro ton pragmatonheiothasi chraesthai to Bouleuesthai, umeis oude meta ta pragmata_.]

[12] To act with prompt.i.tude and vigor--_Mature facto opus est_.