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Catiline, Rebel of the Roman Republic: The Life and Conspiracy of Lucius Sergius Catilina
Lucius Sergius Catilina ('Catiline'), was a Roman aristocrat from a poor but noble family. He was controversial figure both in his own times and in subsequent historical scholarship. Catiline was cast first as the Roman equivalent of Richard III and later as a left-wing revolutionary, depending on the times and historians’ leanings. Although Catiline’s calls for debt relief and other measures in his second consular campaign earned him support from the poor, the author finds that Catiline was motivated by pride and ambition rather than by an interest in widespread social and economic reforms. Embittered by his failure to attain the consulship which he thought was his due given his heritage. He had his lieutenant Manlius raise armed forces in Etruria while he planned to stage a coup in Rome when these forces approached the city.
The conspiracy was betrayed to Cicero. Cicero skillfully used his knowledge of the conspiracy to force Catiline to leave Rome and join Manlius, leaving the city conspirators without effective leadership. Catiline’s urban lieutenants soon blundered by seeking to enlist the support of a Gallic tribe whose emissaries were in the city. The Gauls, skeptical of the conspirators; leadership. decided report all that they had learned about the conspirators’ plans to Cicero. Using the evidence obtained from the Gauls, Cicero presented a prosecutor’s case against the conspirators to the Senate and rallied public opinion against the Catilinarians.
Cicero then executed five of the key conspirators without trial. When Catiline’s soldiers learned of destruction of the urban conspiracy, many deserted. Cataline, finding his army trapped between two larger government forces, died fighting in a fierce but doomed battle at Pistoia.
The conspiracy was betrayed to Cicero. Cicero skillfully used his knowledge of the conspiracy to force Catiline to leave Rome and join Manlius, leaving the city conspirators without effective leadership. Catiline’s urban lieutenants soon blundered by seeking to enlist the support of a Gallic tribe whose emissaries were in the city. The Gauls, skeptical of the conspirators; leadership. decided report all that they had learned about the conspirators’ plans to Cicero. Using the evidence obtained from the Gauls, Cicero presented a prosecutor’s case against the conspirators to the Senate and rallied public opinion against the Catilinarians.
Cicero then executed five of the key conspirators without trial. When Catiline’s soldiers learned of destruction of the urban conspiracy, many deserted. Cataline, finding his army trapped between two larger government forces, died fighting in a fierce but doomed battle at Pistoia.
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224 pages, Hardcover
Published June 30, 2023
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October 19, 2025
James T. Carney Studies The Life & Times Of The Late Roman Republic's Ill-Starred Conspirator, Lucius Sergius Catilina.
Lucius Sergius Catilina incontrovertibly ranks amongst ancient Rome's most notorious characters. He lacked the required wealth & social status to be considered a legitimate powerbroker in the same vein as Themistocles or Gaius Iulius Caesar, & prior to staging his ill-fated coup d'état, his political career could best be described as solidly lukewarm. Yet Catiline & his conspiracy have remained popular topics of discussion, even 2000 years after his death. They appear in the writings & political rhetoric of Renaissance statesmen such as Niccolò Machiavelli, in his dispassionate Discourses On Titus Livius, & in the Considerations of Francesco Guicciardini, as well as countless plays, books, & movies which have been devoted to this disenchanted Roman senator who staged an unsuccessful rebellion during the Late Republican Period of Roman history.
When held next to the Social War or the brutal faction struggle waged between Gaius Marius & Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Catiline's failed conspiracy in the year 63 BC seems almost like a footnote. Catiline was an ambitious aristocrat from a moderately wealthy Roman family who had a mediocre career in politics after an unremarkable stint of military service. After failing to secure a victory in 2 consular elections, in 63 BC he begins conceiving an elaborate scheme to overthrow the Roman government, & to help him achieve this goal, he recruits a veritable rogue's gallery of social outcasts which includes disillusioned senators, former Sullan partisans, Gallic tribesmen, & other assorted undesirables. His insurrection is eventually divulged to Marcus Tullius Cicero, & the senate responds by placing Rome under martial law in a decree known as a senatus consultum ultimum. Catiline is formally declared a hostis & forced to flee the city. He heads north to Etruria where at Praeneste he & his confederates begin a vigorous recruitment campaign which increases their meager army of 2,000 rebels into a substantial force of roughly 12,000 - 20,000 trained soldiers. Back in Rome, Catiline's remaining conspirators are ruthlessly rounded up, arrested, & sentenced to death at the Tullianum. The senate then dispatches two sizeable forces to hunt down Catiline, who is still at large at the head of his rebel army in Etruria. Most of it has deserted him, however, leaving him with a mere 3,000 men. He makes his final stand at Campo Tizzoro, in the Pistoiese Mountains, & after a fierce clash with a Republic army led by Antonius Hybrida, Catiline's ill-fated rebellion finally ends in January 62 with his death at the Battle of Pistoria.
James T. Carney began researching his project on Catiline in 2016, & the end result of his lifelong interest on the subject is a diverse, exceptionally well-written historical biography with an enormous amount of detail & a stellar level of presentation. This 138-page study is divided into 11 chapters, 8 of which each focus on a range of years in Catiline's life which Carney denotes in the chapter titles. The remaining 2 chapters summarize & discuss the various historiographical sources referencing Catiline as well as his various depictions in theatre, poetry, & popular fiction. Carney has chosen a formidable array of historical sources as the foundation for his study, some of the main ones being Sallust's Catiline's War, Cassius Dio's Roman History, Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars, a number of Plutarch's Lives, & most prominently, the political rhetoric of Marcus Tullius Cicero. He mainly focuses on the 4 Catilinarian Orations, but he also makes use of Cicero's defense speeches, such as Pro Caelio as well as more obscure pieces such as the Roman historian Asconius' commentary on Cicero's lost campaign speech, In Toga Candida. The way Carney integrates his sources into the main text of his study is ingeniously done, & it speaks to his ability to present his content in a manner that appeals to his reader.
There has been a paucity of modern scholarly works written on Catiline in the recent past, with the two primary studies being the economic historian Francis Galassi's 2014 Catiline, The Monster of Rome & Barbara Levick's 2015 Catiline (Ancients in Action). The French scholar Gaston Boissier's 1905 The Catiline Conspiracy was recently translated into English by H. Albertus Boli, & is among the more notable antiquated works on Catiline.
One aspect of this book that becomes more apparent the further into it the reader progresses is the point when he or she begins to notice the superior level of polish which has been administered to every minute detail of it. Much of Catiline's life, particularly his early military career, is shrouded in mystery, & the author populates these areas of his study with his own educated hypotheses & sharp-witted commentary. He refers to theories made by prominent Roman historians like Sir Ronald Syme, author of the 1939 The Roman Revolution, before skillfully transitioning his area of focus back to Catiline. In 'Chapter II: Catiline & the Sullani', he briefly delineates on the different groups of Sullan partisans in Rome at the time of the statesman's death in 78 BC before smoothly moving on to his next topic, a fascinating analysis on fragments of Sallust's Historiae which reference Catiline's participation in an undocumented siege that could have been Nola, Aesernia, or Praeneste. He finishes this sequence by comparing the theories of leading historians such as Maurenbacher, Keavney & Strachan, also speaking highly of British historian Barbara Levick's findings in her fairly recent 2015 study on Catiline. As can be clearly seen, the mere 138-page main text belies a surprisingly polished, finely tuned historical biography which showcases a variety of different formats & writing styles.
Catiline's glaring personality flaws combine with his long list of misdeeds & malefactions to render him an unappealing candidate to depict as a tragic hero, by anyone's standards. While taking part in the Sullan proscriptions of 82-81 BC, he was almost certainly responsible for the demise of Marcus Gratidianus. Later, in 73, he was accused along with Marcus Crassus of having illicit relations with two Roman priestesses, one of whom was the sister-in-law of Marcus Tullius Cicero. And while governing from 67 - 66 as pro praetor of Africa, Catiline is charged with res repetunda, or extortion, after forcing the regional tax farmers, the publicani, into taking less than their fair share of fiscal revenue. The resourceful Catiline avoids conviction on these heinous offenses, & Carney provides a riveting account of the conspirator's multiple trials & legal proceedings which are so numerous they likely could occupy an entire book of their own. He also utilizes Sallust's dark, theatrical depictions of Catiline's epic confrontations with the Roman senate, such as his arrogant reply to the Younger Cato's fiery threats to charge him with bribery: "If a fire is kindled against me, I will extinguish it not with water but with general ruin." Carney frequently employs an artistic approach to his narrative on Catiline, & it succeeds in making his book feel less like a dry academic study & something more akin to a dramatic political thriller.
Catiline's political career began with a one-year praetorship in 68 BC, followed by his lucrative appointment to pro praetor of Africa. His success in the dangerous world of Roman politics was short-lived, however, & in the consular elections of 64 he had the misfortune of running against the fiery novus homo Marcus Tullius Cicero. In an attempt to garner extra votes, Catiline begins advocating for legislation aimed at assisting Roman society's poorer demographic. He becomes a proponent of policies favoring agrarian reform where he hopes to gain support from Sullan veterans affected by the rise of cheap labor caused by the latifundia. He also backs bills favoring debt cancellation, which Carney incorporates & discusses as a separate concept he refers to as tabulae novae, the new slate. The study is full of the author's fascinating digressions & observations, & Carney's judgment in choosing the appropriate sub-topic to discuss at any given time is astute & very on-point.
Unfortunately for Catiline, none of the drastic measures he takes on key Roman political issues would make any difference in his efforts to win the consular election, thanks to his unyielding adversary. Cicero responds by composing an array of brutal invective aimed squarely at Catiline in an attempt to destroy his reputation, couching this fiery rhetoric into a series of four speeches, the M. Tullii Ciceronis Orationes in Catilinam. Carney's summaries of the Catilinarian Orations are one of the highlights of his study. He provides context as to the political climate prevalent in Rome at the time each oration was delivered to the senate, & when discussing their contents he gives intriguing insight as to what Cicero's possible motives may have been when portions of the speeches were fabricated. A considerable portion of this book concerns itself with Cicero specifically: his whereabouts, his activities, his psychology -- Cicero was relentless in his efforts to bring about Catiline's downfall, & he did not scruple when the fate of the Republic was at stake.
In a further attempt to destroy his enemy's character, Cicero concocts an imaginary coup d'état, the First Catilinarian Conspiracy, which places Catiline at the center of a fabricated plot to overthrow the Roman government. He expands upon this fiction as time goes on, embellishing it with new & increasingly ludicrous details, & eventually, it would become accepted as the truth by historians such as Sallust & Cassius Dio. The earliest known reference to the First Catilinarian Conspiracy can be found in Cicero's 64 BC campaign speech, the no-longer-extent In Toga Candida, & it also appears in the first of the four Catilinarian Orations & is mentioned in two of Cicero's defense speeches, Pro Murena & Pro Sulla.
Catiline appears in the verse of such early Roman poets as Decimus Junius Juvenalis, in his Saturae, & in Publius Vergilius Maro's The Aeneid. To Juvenal & Vergil, he was a villainous, evil figure who had fallen from grace & besmirched the legacy of his noble ancestors. There are also theatrical portrayals of him in various operas & tragedies throughout the Renaissance & Age Of Enlightenment. Carney briefly discusses Catiline's appearances in Ben Jonson's 1611 Catiline, His Conspiracy & Giambattista Casti's 1792 Catilina, as well as Voltaire's drama, Catiline, also mentioning the modern depictions of Catiline in popular fiction, such as in Robert Harris' Cicero Trilogy, Lester Hutchinson's The Conspiracy of Catiline, & Stephen Saylor's Catilina's Riddle: A Mystery of Ancient Rome. The reader who is enthusiastic about theatre, the arts, or Historical Fiction should enjoy this chapter, as there are a number of excellent suggestions featured herein.
Catiline, Rebel of the Roman Republic: The Life & Conspiracy of Lucius Sergius Catilina is an extraordinary, one-of-a-kind historical biography. James T. Carney's stylishly written narrative on Catiline is supplemented by the findings & educated opinions of some of Roman history's most acclaimed academics, & his ability to transition between different formats & styles of writing is second-to-none. Anyone interested in learning about the life & times of ancient Rome's 2nd-most notorious conspirator next to Marcus Iunius Brutus would be doing themselves a disservice by neglecting to add this excellent title to their library.
Lucius Sergius Catilina is assuredly one of ancient Rome's more notorious figures. If the reader enjoys reading about his life & is searching for another biography written & presented in a fashion similar to Carney's, John S. McHugh's Sejanus: Regent of Rome is an excellent choice. Also worth mentioning are the Penguin Classics editions of the historical sources on Catiline utilized in this study, such as the Sallust collection, Catiline's War, The Jurgurthine War, & The Histories, & Cicero's In Defence of the Republic & On Government, as well as the famous Robert Graves translation of Gaius Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars. Finally, for anyone who is looking to read up on what Niccolò Machiavelli & Francesco Guicciardini had to say about Catiline, the reader need look no further than James B. Atkinson & David Sices' 2002 The Sweetness of Power: Machiavelli's Discourses & Guicciardini's Considerations. This duology contains the highest-quality, most thoroughly annotated translations of the Discorsi & Considerazioni encountered by this reviewer, & contains the only English version of Guicciardini's critique currently available. Thank you so very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed the review!
Lucius Sergius Catilina incontrovertibly ranks amongst ancient Rome's most notorious characters. He lacked the required wealth & social status to be considered a legitimate powerbroker in the same vein as Themistocles or Gaius Iulius Caesar, & prior to staging his ill-fated coup d'état, his political career could best be described as solidly lukewarm. Yet Catiline & his conspiracy have remained popular topics of discussion, even 2000 years after his death. They appear in the writings & political rhetoric of Renaissance statesmen such as Niccolò Machiavelli, in his dispassionate Discourses On Titus Livius, & in the Considerations of Francesco Guicciardini, as well as countless plays, books, & movies which have been devoted to this disenchanted Roman senator who staged an unsuccessful rebellion during the Late Republican Period of Roman history.
When held next to the Social War or the brutal faction struggle waged between Gaius Marius & Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Catiline's failed conspiracy in the year 63 BC seems almost like a footnote. Catiline was an ambitious aristocrat from a moderately wealthy Roman family who had a mediocre career in politics after an unremarkable stint of military service. After failing to secure a victory in 2 consular elections, in 63 BC he begins conceiving an elaborate scheme to overthrow the Roman government, & to help him achieve this goal, he recruits a veritable rogue's gallery of social outcasts which includes disillusioned senators, former Sullan partisans, Gallic tribesmen, & other assorted undesirables. His insurrection is eventually divulged to Marcus Tullius Cicero, & the senate responds by placing Rome under martial law in a decree known as a senatus consultum ultimum. Catiline is formally declared a hostis & forced to flee the city. He heads north to Etruria where at Praeneste he & his confederates begin a vigorous recruitment campaign which increases their meager army of 2,000 rebels into a substantial force of roughly 12,000 - 20,000 trained soldiers. Back in Rome, Catiline's remaining conspirators are ruthlessly rounded up, arrested, & sentenced to death at the Tullianum. The senate then dispatches two sizeable forces to hunt down Catiline, who is still at large at the head of his rebel army in Etruria. Most of it has deserted him, however, leaving him with a mere 3,000 men. He makes his final stand at Campo Tizzoro, in the Pistoiese Mountains, & after a fierce clash with a Republic army led by Antonius Hybrida, Catiline's ill-fated rebellion finally ends in January 62 with his death at the Battle of Pistoria.
James T. Carney began researching his project on Catiline in 2016, & the end result of his lifelong interest on the subject is a diverse, exceptionally well-written historical biography with an enormous amount of detail & a stellar level of presentation. This 138-page study is divided into 11 chapters, 8 of which each focus on a range of years in Catiline's life which Carney denotes in the chapter titles. The remaining 2 chapters summarize & discuss the various historiographical sources referencing Catiline as well as his various depictions in theatre, poetry, & popular fiction. Carney has chosen a formidable array of historical sources as the foundation for his study, some of the main ones being Sallust's Catiline's War, Cassius Dio's Roman History, Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars, a number of Plutarch's Lives, & most prominently, the political rhetoric of Marcus Tullius Cicero. He mainly focuses on the 4 Catilinarian Orations, but he also makes use of Cicero's defense speeches, such as Pro Caelio as well as more obscure pieces such as the Roman historian Asconius' commentary on Cicero's lost campaign speech, In Toga Candida. The way Carney integrates his sources into the main text of his study is ingeniously done, & it speaks to his ability to present his content in a manner that appeals to his reader.
There has been a paucity of modern scholarly works written on Catiline in the recent past, with the two primary studies being the economic historian Francis Galassi's 2014 Catiline, The Monster of Rome & Barbara Levick's 2015 Catiline (Ancients in Action). The French scholar Gaston Boissier's 1905 The Catiline Conspiracy was recently translated into English by H. Albertus Boli, & is among the more notable antiquated works on Catiline.
One aspect of this book that becomes more apparent the further into it the reader progresses is the point when he or she begins to notice the superior level of polish which has been administered to every minute detail of it. Much of Catiline's life, particularly his early military career, is shrouded in mystery, & the author populates these areas of his study with his own educated hypotheses & sharp-witted commentary. He refers to theories made by prominent Roman historians like Sir Ronald Syme, author of the 1939 The Roman Revolution, before skillfully transitioning his area of focus back to Catiline. In 'Chapter II: Catiline & the Sullani', he briefly delineates on the different groups of Sullan partisans in Rome at the time of the statesman's death in 78 BC before smoothly moving on to his next topic, a fascinating analysis on fragments of Sallust's Historiae which reference Catiline's participation in an undocumented siege that could have been Nola, Aesernia, or Praeneste. He finishes this sequence by comparing the theories of leading historians such as Maurenbacher, Keavney & Strachan, also speaking highly of British historian Barbara Levick's findings in her fairly recent 2015 study on Catiline. As can be clearly seen, the mere 138-page main text belies a surprisingly polished, finely tuned historical biography which showcases a variety of different formats & writing styles.
Catiline's glaring personality flaws combine with his long list of misdeeds & malefactions to render him an unappealing candidate to depict as a tragic hero, by anyone's standards. While taking part in the Sullan proscriptions of 82-81 BC, he was almost certainly responsible for the demise of Marcus Gratidianus. Later, in 73, he was accused along with Marcus Crassus of having illicit relations with two Roman priestesses, one of whom was the sister-in-law of Marcus Tullius Cicero. And while governing from 67 - 66 as pro praetor of Africa, Catiline is charged with res repetunda, or extortion, after forcing the regional tax farmers, the publicani, into taking less than their fair share of fiscal revenue. The resourceful Catiline avoids conviction on these heinous offenses, & Carney provides a riveting account of the conspirator's multiple trials & legal proceedings which are so numerous they likely could occupy an entire book of their own. He also utilizes Sallust's dark, theatrical depictions of Catiline's epic confrontations with the Roman senate, such as his arrogant reply to the Younger Cato's fiery threats to charge him with bribery: "If a fire is kindled against me, I will extinguish it not with water but with general ruin." Carney frequently employs an artistic approach to his narrative on Catiline, & it succeeds in making his book feel less like a dry academic study & something more akin to a dramatic political thriller.
Catiline's political career began with a one-year praetorship in 68 BC, followed by his lucrative appointment to pro praetor of Africa. His success in the dangerous world of Roman politics was short-lived, however, & in the consular elections of 64 he had the misfortune of running against the fiery novus homo Marcus Tullius Cicero. In an attempt to garner extra votes, Catiline begins advocating for legislation aimed at assisting Roman society's poorer demographic. He becomes a proponent of policies favoring agrarian reform where he hopes to gain support from Sullan veterans affected by the rise of cheap labor caused by the latifundia. He also backs bills favoring debt cancellation, which Carney incorporates & discusses as a separate concept he refers to as tabulae novae, the new slate. The study is full of the author's fascinating digressions & observations, & Carney's judgment in choosing the appropriate sub-topic to discuss at any given time is astute & very on-point.
Unfortunately for Catiline, none of the drastic measures he takes on key Roman political issues would make any difference in his efforts to win the consular election, thanks to his unyielding adversary. Cicero responds by composing an array of brutal invective aimed squarely at Catiline in an attempt to destroy his reputation, couching this fiery rhetoric into a series of four speeches, the M. Tullii Ciceronis Orationes in Catilinam. Carney's summaries of the Catilinarian Orations are one of the highlights of his study. He provides context as to the political climate prevalent in Rome at the time each oration was delivered to the senate, & when discussing their contents he gives intriguing insight as to what Cicero's possible motives may have been when portions of the speeches were fabricated. A considerable portion of this book concerns itself with Cicero specifically: his whereabouts, his activities, his psychology -- Cicero was relentless in his efforts to bring about Catiline's downfall, & he did not scruple when the fate of the Republic was at stake.
In a further attempt to destroy his enemy's character, Cicero concocts an imaginary coup d'état, the First Catilinarian Conspiracy, which places Catiline at the center of a fabricated plot to overthrow the Roman government. He expands upon this fiction as time goes on, embellishing it with new & increasingly ludicrous details, & eventually, it would become accepted as the truth by historians such as Sallust & Cassius Dio. The earliest known reference to the First Catilinarian Conspiracy can be found in Cicero's 64 BC campaign speech, the no-longer-extent In Toga Candida, & it also appears in the first of the four Catilinarian Orations & is mentioned in two of Cicero's defense speeches, Pro Murena & Pro Sulla.
Catiline appears in the verse of such early Roman poets as Decimus Junius Juvenalis, in his Saturae, & in Publius Vergilius Maro's The Aeneid. To Juvenal & Vergil, he was a villainous, evil figure who had fallen from grace & besmirched the legacy of his noble ancestors. There are also theatrical portrayals of him in various operas & tragedies throughout the Renaissance & Age Of Enlightenment. Carney briefly discusses Catiline's appearances in Ben Jonson's 1611 Catiline, His Conspiracy & Giambattista Casti's 1792 Catilina, as well as Voltaire's drama, Catiline, also mentioning the modern depictions of Catiline in popular fiction, such as in Robert Harris' Cicero Trilogy, Lester Hutchinson's The Conspiracy of Catiline, & Stephen Saylor's Catilina's Riddle: A Mystery of Ancient Rome. The reader who is enthusiastic about theatre, the arts, or Historical Fiction should enjoy this chapter, as there are a number of excellent suggestions featured herein.
Catiline, Rebel of the Roman Republic: The Life & Conspiracy of Lucius Sergius Catilina is an extraordinary, one-of-a-kind historical biography. James T. Carney's stylishly written narrative on Catiline is supplemented by the findings & educated opinions of some of Roman history's most acclaimed academics, & his ability to transition between different formats & styles of writing is second-to-none. Anyone interested in learning about the life & times of ancient Rome's 2nd-most notorious conspirator next to Marcus Iunius Brutus would be doing themselves a disservice by neglecting to add this excellent title to their library.
Lucius Sergius Catilina is assuredly one of ancient Rome's more notorious figures. If the reader enjoys reading about his life & is searching for another biography written & presented in a fashion similar to Carney's, John S. McHugh's Sejanus: Regent of Rome is an excellent choice. Also worth mentioning are the Penguin Classics editions of the historical sources on Catiline utilized in this study, such as the Sallust collection, Catiline's War, The Jurgurthine War, & The Histories, & Cicero's In Defence of the Republic & On Government, as well as the famous Robert Graves translation of Gaius Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars. Finally, for anyone who is looking to read up on what Niccolò Machiavelli & Francesco Guicciardini had to say about Catiline, the reader need look no further than James B. Atkinson & David Sices' 2002 The Sweetness of Power: Machiavelli's Discourses & Guicciardini's Considerations. This duology contains the highest-quality, most thoroughly annotated translations of the Discorsi & Considerazioni encountered by this reviewer, & contains the only English version of Guicciardini's critique currently available. Thank you so very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed the review!
June 15, 2025
This is peakkk but can we bash Cicero less? :<
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