Speeches against Catilina · Marcus Tullius Cicero
NOTE A.
The above sketch follows in the main the traditional account of the Catilinarian conspiracy, which has been generally accepted by later historians. It is fair to add that some writers have adopted a different view, which may be thus briefly stated. They believe that historians have been mistaken in regarding Catilina as the leader of a mere band of desperadoes; that his so-called 'conspiracy' was really an act of revolt against the authority of the Senate on the part of the whole democratic party, of which he was the recognized leader (a similar movement, in fact, to those which had been organized by Gaius Gracchus in 123 B.C., by Saturninus in 100 B.C., by M. Lepidus in 78 B.C., and others); that he was driven to use force by the opposition of the Optimates to his schemes, and that Cicero, as the spokesman of the latter, purposely misrepresented him as the leader of an anarchist conspiracy, whose sole object was confiscation and plunder.
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