Lucius Sergius Catilina

Lucius Sergius Catilina attempted to seize power in Rome in 63 BC and gave Cicero the material for the most famous speeches in Latin. Born around 108 BC into an ancient patrician family that had held no consulship for centuries and had lost its money, he served under Sulla and profited from the proscriptions, in which he is said to have killed his own brother-in-law. He was praetor in 68 BC and governor of Africa, and was prosecuted for extortion on his return, which blocked his candidacy for the consulship in 66 and 65 BC. He was acquitted, and stood again in 64 BC. He lost to Cicero, a new man with no consular ancestors — a humiliation for a patrician. He stood once more in 63 BC on a platform of tabulae novae, the cancellation of debts, which appealed to indebted veterans, dispossessed farmers in Etruria and impoverished aristocrats, and terrified the propertied classes. He lost again. He then organised a conspiracy: an army raised in Etruria under Gaius Manlius, and a plan for arson and killings in the city. Cicero learned of it through Fulvia, the mistress of one of the plotters, survived an assassination attempt, and denounced Catiline in the Senate on 8 November 63 BC. Catiline left Rome that night. Cicero obtained written evidence from envoys of the Allobroges and had five conspirators executed without trial under the senatus consultum ultimum — a decision that later cost him exile. Catiline was cornered at Pistoria in January 62 BC and died fighting, his body found far in advance of his own line. Sallust wrote the surviving monograph, hostile and vivid.

• Lived: 108 BCE – 62 BCE
• Nationality: Roman
• Roles: senator, conspirator