Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/239

Rh. The prosecution at any rate hindered Catiline from being a consular candidate in 65.

The Consular Campaign and Election in 64. — Finally, in 64, Catiline, nothing daunted, became in due form a candidate for the consulship. There were two other candidates of importance — Gaius Antonius and Cicero. The former was a younger son of the orator, had been expelled from the senate in 70, and was praetor for the second time in 66. He was an insignificant man in great financial straits, whom the conspirators expected to make use of as a tool. Cicero was now the most brilliant and successful advocate and orator of Rome, and was very popular. He had, however, been a political trimmer, and — what was worse — he was a man without illustrious ancestry. From the aristocratic point of view this was a greater objection than the utter depravity and the crimes of Catiline, redeemed as they were by his patrician blood. Catiline and Antonius combined to defeat Cicero by all means, fair or foul, and were supported by Crassus and Caesar. Their prospects were excellent. The present aim of the conspirators was to seize the government through the consular powers, and to begin war against Pompeius in Italy and elsewhere. Aid was to be furnished by Piso in Spain and by others. But the rumors of the first conspiracy and of the present schemes spread, and Catiline and Antonius went beyond all bounds in bribery and in preparing to use force. The result was that the oligarchic party, for the sake of personal and public safety, supported Cicero, who was elected unanimously. Antonius, receiving a few more votes than Catiline, became his colleague.

Somewhat later Catiline, who had been perhaps the chief executioner during the proscriptions of Sulla, was prosecuted on the charge of murder; this was probably a shrewd counter move against Caesar. But he was considered too