The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

00:00:00.640 Hello and welcome to this episode of Epochs where I shall be talking all about the Catiline

00:00:05.180 Conspiracy, a very specific moment in time in ancient Rome in about 63, 62 AD, B.C. rather.

00:00:13.120 And I'll be in conversation with Elizabeth Heverin, how are you?

00:00:16.880 Hi, thanks for having me on.

00:00:18.680 Yeah, thanks for coming in, I appreciate it. So you've recently been published in,

00:00:22.520 what was the magazine you were published in?

00:00:24.640 The Critic.

00:00:25.640 Yeah, with a very good article about the Gracchi brothers, something I've written about myself.

00:00:31.240 So you've got an interest in the ancient world and you've got knowledge about the ancient world.

00:00:36.680 So just before we start, how come, why do you like the ancient world? What is it that's fascinating to you?

00:00:42.520 I particularly, when it comes to the ancient world, I'm quite fascinated with the Roman Republic

00:00:47.080 specifically. I think there's a lot of patterns within the republican world and our own time today,

00:00:53.880 particularly the corruption and the consequences of that when it came to governmental life.

00:01:01.080 I'm quite interested in the circular theory of the Republic, how you have this

00:01:05.800 great civilisation that comes by overthrowing this tyrant of a monarch and it's then built on

00:01:12.680 virtue and men seem to place their country first and seem to place virtue first rather than

00:01:18.280 their self-interest. And then after a series of wars with Carthage, the world becomes corrupted with

00:01:30.200 wealth and it's that decline and fall that I'm most interested in. But also studying the Roman Republic

00:01:38.360 sort of brings me hope in the sense that the Republic doesn't die and fall apart. Instead,

00:01:43.080 something better comes from its ashes, which is the Roman Empire. So it's like the circular theory of 0.60

00:01:50.520 we're so over, but in the end we're so back.

00:01:53.160 Do you think something similar might happen with the United States, the great republic of our age?

00:01:58.760 I think throughout history, even after the Roman Republic, we've seen the circular theory of

00:02:05.320 civilisations repeat themselves. So for example, one which applies most in Britain is the rise and

00:02:13.400 decline of the Britons after the Roman Empire. And we see that throughout history with different

00:02:22.520 royal families taking power and then falling and then other royal families come and take their place.

00:02:28.680 So I think we're really living in the decline of another circular theory of civilisation in our own

00:02:34.520 time. And what will come from the ashes is to be debated. And we can find these answers looking

00:02:40.920 into the past, which is why the Roman Republic is so fascinating.

00:02:44.600 Right. Yeah, that's an interesting point you point out there. I mean, we'll be talking all about

00:02:48.520 Cicero, old Tully in this episode, and he's someone who said exactly that. If you remain ignorant of your

00:02:56.040 past, you're forever to remain a child and doomed to repeat the failures of the past if you're not aware of

00:03:02.600 the pitfalls that we've already gone through. So another thing you mentioned there that is interesting

00:03:06.920 and will come up in our story, what about this concept of that your civilisation is in decline

00:03:13.240 or that men are more degenerate, mankind is more degenerate and venal than they used to be.

00:03:19.400 And that thing comes up in this, doesn't it? Because even by the 60s BC in Rome, so you know,

00:03:25.720 after Sulla, but before Julius Caesar. So just to put it in context real quick, Sulla dies in what,

00:03:32.440 like 78 BC, I think, and the events we're going to be talking about is 62 and 63 BC. So it's about 15

00:03:39.480 years after Sulla dies. But we're not really into the age of Julius Caesar yet. He's a very, very junior

00:03:46.520 politician, isn't he? It's sort of the rise of Pompey. Pompey's sort of the main guy, right,

00:03:51.560 one of the most powerful people in Rome at this moment. So, yeah, the 60s BC. And even at that

00:03:57.320 point, the Republic had this feeling, don't you think, of men used to be stronger and more virtuous

00:04:03.720 and better in the past, even just like two generations ago. We were better two generations

00:04:09.240 ago and now everyone's sleeping around and committing all sorts of crimes and the whole things,

00:04:15.480 our whole civilisation is going to pot. Did you get that feeling reading the sources?

00:04:20.520 Yeah, precisely. I think, for example, Sallis, that's right. He sort of talks about in the

00:04:27.320 opening of his work on the Catiline conspiracy, about when he enters public office, he's sort

00:04:33.960 of tempted by all these vices because there's so much vice within the Senate and within those in power

00:04:41.240 that he says in the end, it makes him jealous of those who hold more power than him. And you sort of

00:04:47.400 see that. It's this great wealth that comes into Rome that corrupts people's character. No longer

00:04:56.360 is it about what can I do for my country. It's more of what can my country do for me. And I think

00:05:04.920 Sallis puts it quite great when he says that men no longer make friends for merit. They instead

00:05:12.840 only care for friendships if it's in their self-interest. And that's really what you see in the

00:05:20.040 60s BC. Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah, that men used to have virtues and principles that they would stand

00:05:26.840 on come what may, and now everyone's just in the business of bribing their way into office and not

00:05:34.040 doing the right thing when they get it. So you mentioned Sallis then, so I'd like to say a quick

00:05:40.040 few words right at the beginning, as I usually do, about the sources. So we've actually sort of got

00:05:46.120 an embarrassment of riches in a way when it comes to the Catiline conspiracy. There's a reason why

00:05:50.520 people who don't know their Roman history might not ever have heard of the Catiline conspiracy.

00:05:54.520 But if you have and you know your Roman history, it's one of the highlights, right? It's one of the more famous

00:05:58.760 events. And it's quite a small period of time we're talking about, like less than a year from start

00:06:03.240 to finish, right? So it's a fairly tight focus here. And we've got, well, Plutarch, there's the life of

00:06:11.000 Cicero in Plutarch, but Plutarch also talks about the Catiline conspiracy in passing in other places.

00:06:18.440 We've got Sallust, who did a whole small, very, very small book all about it. I've got my Sallust here.

00:06:24.040 We'll be quoting from it. I think you've got some quotes. And also Cicero himself,

00:06:31.160 not just his speeches, he sort of famously made three or was it four orations attacking Catiline?

00:06:37.000 Yeah.

00:06:37.320 Four?

00:06:37.640 Yeah, I think so.

00:06:38.280 You did. Okay, the first one's the most important, famous one. So they survived to us incredibly.

00:06:43.880 So we've got the actual speeches of Cicero and Sallust is a contemporary, he was alive at the time,

00:06:48.520 as was Cicero, obviously. And then we've got Plutarch, what else? We've got Dio, Cassius Dio,

00:06:53.800 talks a bit about it. So there's, oh, and Appian, of course, that talks a bit about it.

00:07:01.560 So in one sense, we've got loads of information, right? For an ancient event in ancient history,

00:07:07.400 that's loads of different sources. You would think that's great.

00:07:10.760 Well, it is great. You know, if you go back to something like Herodotus,

00:07:14.760 he might mention someone once in passing, and that's it. That's all the literary evidence we've

00:07:20.040 got about something full stop. So when it comes to the Catiline conspiracy, we've got lots and lots

00:07:24.840 of information. But perhaps it's too much really, because a lot of the sources are,

00:07:32.920 most scholars and historians agree, completely biased. We're getting one side of the story,

00:07:37.640 aren't we? We're getting Cicero's side of the story only. Sallust is a massive Cicero fan,

00:07:42.520 a pretty big Cicero fan, certainly an enemy of, politically, of Catiline. So we've got a lot,

00:07:50.200 but it's very dodgy ground. Do you know all about this debate surrounding the sources?

00:07:56.680 Yeah, yeah, I do. But I think, you know, the fact that these sources remain, you know,

00:08:04.200 they were quite popular for their age sort of illustrates what most of the majority of men

00:08:08.520 thought of Catiline. I think in his first speech, I think Cicero puts it quite well. He puts,

00:08:16.760 nobody in the Senate greets you anymore, and you sit by yourself. If I was you, I would, you know,

00:08:22.520 flee Rome in shame. And, you know, although Cicero may be heavily biased, I think that that speech

00:08:28.440 alone sort of illustrates what the rest of the Senate thinks of Catiline. No one ever brings up any

00:08:35.480 admirable qualities or anything great he's done in his life. It's more, he's more of this representation

00:08:41.320 of a life of shame and degeneracy and everything to avoid.

00:08:44.840 Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Like, no one wants to sit with you, Catiline. Like, on the unpopular kid's table

00:08:52.920 at lunch at school. There's just one kid on his own and no one wants to sit there. Yeah. So, I mean,

00:08:58.680 let's get into it then. So let's talk about Catiline. Who was Catiline? Who is Catiline?

00:09:04.520 Because if I could say a little bit more about the sources, it's in Cicero's interest politically

00:09:12.120 to paint Catiline to be as bad as possible. And once we tell you the story and how it all plays out,

00:09:18.520 you'll know why that is. But just to say, it's in his interest to make Catiline to be as evil and

00:09:24.360 monstrous as possible. Sallust is on that bandwagon. Plutarch is a bit fairer, but he's still much

00:09:32.120 more of a fan of Cicero than he is of Catiline. So the image we get from all the sources is that he's

00:09:39.240 just terrible, just a black and white, terrible person. There's nothing redeeming about him. 1.00

00:09:45.000 There's nothing good about him. Now, most serious historians, when you get a picture of someone

00:09:50.120 coming back to you through time like that, you have to question it, right? You have to be,

00:09:54.600 most people aren't usually that bad. You might get the odd person, like, I don't know,

00:09:59.480 Joseph Mengele or something, or Stalin, or not even Stalin, I was going to say someone with no

00:10:04.680 redeemable features. But it's very, very rare, isn't it? And so a lot of historians have said maybe

00:10:13.240 what we're being told about Catiline is an exaggeration. But so let's start off. So who is he?

00:10:19.320 He's a senator, right? That's right. He was expelled from running for council in 65 and 64 BC because of

00:10:32.120 bribery and stuff like that. So I suppose that's more concrete evidence, you know, the fact that he's

00:10:39.720 expelled, which shows that he really is not the most admirable politicians and the crowd that he sort of

00:10:51.240 surrounds himself and sort of people in the Senate who backs his campaign or all people who are expelled

00:10:59.160 for immorality, corruption, bribery. They're all figures that are sort of like him in the sense of

00:11:08.280 their faces. So I think that alone sort of illustrates again that Catiline is somebody that most certainly

00:11:17.880 surrounds himself with corrupt and fights for people.

00:11:22.840 Yeah. We're told in all the sources that he keeps company with bad people.

00:11:29.400 Yeah. Right. The worst of people, corrupt politicians. So, again, what we're going to talk about,

00:11:34.280 the conspiracy, Catiline's conspiracy, the events really take place in 63 and into 62 BC. And we

00:11:41.800 count down because we're in BC, of course. But in the previous years, I think 66 and 65 BC,

00:11:47.720 the Catiline had tried to become consul and failed, had lost the election. So the things we have to get

00:11:56.200 into there to sort of put meat on the bones for anyone who doesn't know, is that Rome at this stage is

00:12:02.760 fantastically corrupt. You could only really win these high offices, like a Praetor or an Aedile or

00:12:09.400 something or the consulship, through loads of bribery. There's sort of no other way. There's different

00:12:17.480 civilisations throughout history where it's normalised, where everyone knows it's corrupt

00:12:23.480 and you're not supposed to be bribing people, but everyone's doing it. Everyone knows it's going on.

00:12:28.760 You stand no chance if you don't do it. So it's, yeah, it's still illegal, but it's normalised.

00:12:37.560 Yeah. I think earlier in Cicero's career, there's a law that's wanting to be passed where they want

00:12:44.360 to banish any politician who bribes from the Senate. And I think Cicero says, well, if you do that,

00:12:53.000 half of us will just be gone. It's something that is extremely normalised to the point where

00:13:00.600 no one really knows how to overcome the problem whatsoever.

00:13:03.720 Yeah. Yeah. No, it's completely endemic by this point, especially for the highest ones,

00:13:09.800 the Praetor ships and the consulships. If you want to run for it, unless you happen to be

00:13:14.600 fantastically rich in your own right, someone like Crassus, unless you're that, which is at all times,

00:13:21.880 hardly anyone, right? Unless you're that, you will have to borrow loads of money in order to bribe your

00:13:28.920 way into office. So, I mean, that's what Julius Caesar does. That's what all sorts of people do.

00:13:34.440 And that's what Catiline had to have done. So everyone's doing it. It just depends whether

00:13:40.760 you've got enough enemies that will try and prosecute you for it if you fail, right? So,

00:13:47.080 that's one of the foundational things to this story is that Catiline has borrowed sort of insane sums

00:13:55.800 of money in order to bribe his way into office, which he then failed to do. So then you're in a

00:14:01.560 tough spot at that point. Julius Caesar, earlier in his career, when he was, sorry, after this,

00:14:06.760 but still earlier in his career, he ran to be Pontifex Maximus and he had to bribe his way into that

00:14:14.040 office. And on the morning of the election, apparently he said to his mother as he left the

00:14:17.960 house, if I lose this vote, you might not see me again. I'll be done. It means that I won't be able

00:14:26.040 to repay my creditors. I'll be in fantastic amounts of debt and I won't have a chance of paying it back.

00:14:32.520 So I'm either going to have to skip town or you might just find me dead in an alley. I need to win

00:14:38.200 this. If I don't win the election, I'm screwed. So anyway, just to give you a flavour, that's what

00:14:42.440 happens to Catiline. He runs for a couple of times, borrows fantastically to do it, fails and now he

00:14:48.360 owes people loads of money and he hasn't even got a high office to show for it. And his enemies,

00:14:53.720 as you said, for those earlier runs in 65, 66 BC, they tried to, well, they did put him on trial for

00:15:00.920 corruption and bribery, right? But he just about got acquitted or got off. So what are your feelings on

00:15:07.720 all of that? Yeah, I mean, exactly, you know, he's sort of, well, he's lost all these elections and

00:15:13.880 he's gone completely bankrupt. He's from a falling aristocratic family that hasn't held consul for

00:15:20.680 many, many years. And he gets very, very desperate to the point where he's willing to forsake Rome for

00:15:29.240 his own personal gain in order to restore that which he had. I think Cicero, as well, in one of his

00:15:38.680 speeches makes a really good point. He illustrates that, you know, Catiline is this man of great wealth.

00:15:44.200 He holds all these, you know, orgies and awful things within his house. But he also still possesses

00:15:53.960 quite a lot of wealth and he's unwilling to sell that off because of the sort of shame it will bring

00:15:58.680 him that he's no longer this wealthy sort of figure. Again, he's willing to do anything but to

00:16:09.640 become poor. And that's what you see with the Catiline conspiracy. It illustrates very well that

00:16:15.960 the Roman Republic at this stage is in complete whoopness, that men are no longer, you know, 0.65

00:16:21.880 fighting for their principles, but rather fighting for the self-interest above everything.

00:16:31.000 Yeah, a lot of people, they always accuse Catiline of that he's ambitious. That's what often comes up.

00:16:37.160 It's just the criticism that you're ambitious. These days, that's not really a problem, right? You're

00:16:42.520 almost encouraged to be ambitious and to sort of be a self-publicist and things. But in the ancient

00:16:49.640 world or the medieval world, quite often, that was one of the worst sort of vices to be seen to be

00:16:55.160 ambitious. But yeah, Catiline's always accused of that. Well, he certainly wanted to be console

00:17:01.640 and had failed. So he has one last shot at running to be console in the year 63. And if he won, he would

00:17:11.160 be console for the year 62. And he loses again. And Cicero happens to be console for 63. And so I suppose

00:17:23.640 we could start picking up the story. I've got one quick paragraph here where you mentioned the people

00:17:28.200 he hangs around with and the type of person he is. If I read this paragraph from Salast, we're told that

00:17:35.720 Catiline was a man of noble birth and of eminent mental and personal endowments, but of a vicious

00:17:41.560 and depraved disposition. His delight from his youth had been civil commotions, bloodshed,

00:17:49.560 robbery and sedition. I mean, that's pretty bad, isn't it? And in such scenes, he had spent his early

00:17:55.320 years. His constitution could endure hunger, want of sleep and cold to a degree surpassing belief.

00:18:02.440 His mind was daring, subtle and versatile, capable of pretending or dissembling whatever he wished.

00:18:09.960 So he's not stupid, right? He was covetous of other men's property and prodigal of his own.

00:18:18.200 He had abundance of eloquence, so he was sharp as well, though but little wisdom.

00:18:25.640 His insatiable ambition was always pursuing objects extravagant, romantic and unattainable.

00:18:33.240 Crazy, isn't it? The ancient biographers, how they speak and how they write. But yeah,

00:18:37.320 that gives you an idea, sort of a bit of an idea of the man. So not stupid, quite a formidable

00:18:43.000 political player, but it seems, if you believe the accounts, just not a good or nice person.

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PREVIEW： Epochs #167 ｜ The Catiline Conspiracy

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