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Catiline, having made these arrangements, still canvassed for the consulship for the following year; hoping that, if he should be elected, he would easily manage Antonius according to his pleasure. Nor did he, in the mean time remain inactive, but devised schemes, in every possible way, against Cicero, who, however, did not want skill or policy to guard against them. For, at the very beginning of his consulship, he had, by making many promises through Fulvia, prevailed on Quintus Curius, whom I have already mentioned, to give him secret information of Catiline's proceedings. He had also persuaded his colleague, Antonius, by an arrangement respecting their provinces,1 to entertain no sentiment of disaffection toward the state; and he kept around him, though without ostentation, a guard of his friends and dependents.
When the day of the comitia came, and neither Catiline's efforts for the consulship, nor the plots which he had laid for the consuls in the Campus Martius,2 were attended with success, he determined to proceed to war, and resort to the utmost extremities, since what he had attempted secretly had ended in confusion and disgrace.3
1 XXVI. By an arrangement respecting their provinces] “Pactione provinciæ.” This passage has been absurdly misrepresented by most translators, except De Brosses. Even Rose, who was a scholar, translated pactione provinciæ, "by promising a province to his colleague." Plutarch, in his Life of Cicero, says that the two provinces, which Cicero and his colleague Antonius shared between them, were Gaul and Macedonia, and that Cicero, in order to retain Antonius in the interest of the senate, exchanged with him Macedonia, which had fallen to himself, for the inferior province of Gaul. See Jug., c. 27.
2 Plots which he had laid for the consuls in the Campus Martius] “Insidiæ quas consuli in campo fecerat.” I have here departed from the text of Cortius, who reads consulibus, thinking that Catiline, in his rage, might have extended his plots even to the consuls-elect. But consuli, there is little doubt, is the right reading, as it is favored by what is said at the beginning of the chapter, insidias parabat Ciceroni, by what follows in the next chapter, consuli insidias tendere, and by the words, sperans, si designatus foret, facilè se ex voluntate Antonio usurum; for if Catiline trusted that he should be able to use his pleasure with Antonius, he could hardly think it necessary to form plots against his life. I have De Brosses on my side, who translates the phrase, les pièges où il comptait faire pèrir le consul. The words in campo, which look extremely like an intruded gloss, I wonder that Cortius should have retained. " Consuli ," says Gerlach, "appears the more eligible, not only on account of consuli insidias tendere, c. 27, but because nothing but the death of Cicero was necessary to make everything favorable for Catiline." Kritzius, Bernouf, Dietsch, Pappaur, Allen, and all the modern editors, read Consuli. See also the end of c. 27: Si priùs Ciceronem oppressisset.
3 Had ended in confusion and disgrace] “Aspera fædaque evenerant.” I have borrowed from Murphy.
Conspiracy of Catiline. Sallust. Rev. John Selby Watson, M.A. New York and London. Harper & Brothers. 1899.
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