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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
The ancient tradition is strong that the execution of M. Marius Gratidianus during the Sullan proscriptions was carried out by L. Sergius Catilina. The earliest evidence comes from several passages in Cicero's speech in toga candida, delivered just before the consular elections in 64 and designed to rake up as much prejudice as possible against his two main rival candidates, Catilina and C. Antonius (Hybrida). While in none of the passages does Cicero specifically mention the executioner or the victim, it is Asconius commenting on the passages (which are preserved for us as lemmata in his commentary on the speech) who reveals that Catilina was the executioner and Marius Gratidianus the victim. We do not have a great deal of the speech in toga candida left (and we are indebted to Asconius for what we do have of it); if we did have the whole speech, it is clear that we would have been given the name by Cicero himself.
The Ciceronian version (if that term may be used for convenience) is that the head of Gratidianus was cut off by Catilina, carried in his hands through the city from the Janiculum to the temple of Apollo, and delivered to Sulla still full of life and breath. This version is followed by Plutarch (Sull. 32.2). A variation can be found, as early as Sallust (and so for convenience it may be called the Sallustian version — not that the two versions are necessarily to be regarded as mutually exclusive). There is a fragment of the historiae which says that Gratidianus died after his arms and legs had been broken and his eyes gouged out, so that he expired as it were through each and every limb. There is nothing about his head being cut off and carried about, nor is there any mention of Catilina as the executioner. While the details of the torture and mutilation become progressively more gory, this version is followed by Livy (per. 88), Valerius Maximus (9.2.1), Lucan (2.173–93), and Florus (2.9.26 = 3.21.26).
* This paper is dedicated to the memory of Martin Frederiksen, a fellow Australian, who was my tutor in Worcester College when I was a D.Phil. candidate. It was he who first suggested to me the idea that Catilina may not have been the murderer of Gratidianus. I should also like to thank Associate Professor P. McGushin and Dr T. J. Cadoux for reading the draft of this paper and for giving me the benefit of their criticism; it should not be taken that they agree with the conclusions drawn here.
1 The relevant passages are frr. 2, 9, 10 and 16 in the second edition of Puccioni, I., M. Tulli Ciceronis Orationum Deperditarum Fragmenta (Milan, 1972)Google Scholar, hereafter abbreviated as P. They equal Ascon. 83.26–84.1, 90.3–5, 87.16–18, and 89.25–7. Passages of Asconius are given according to page and line number of the edition of A. C. Clark (Oxford, 1907).
2 Sall. hist. 1.44 M: ‘ut in M. Mario, cui fracta prius crura brachiaque et oculi effossi, scilicet ut per singulos artus expiraret’.
3 Lucan's account has a list of the most gruesome tortures and mutilations.
4 The combining of elements need not necessarily have come later, if the comm. pet. is to be regarded as an authentic document and dated to the time of Cicero's candidature for the consulship: see below, n. 11. The comm. pet. adds a new detail, that Gratidianus was beaten with cudgels as he was driven through the city.
5 Seneca's phrase ‘paulatim et per singulos artus laceravit’ is even a verbal echo of Sallust.
6 Firmicus Maternus wrongly associates his account of the execution with the younger Marius (cf. App. B.C. 1.65), when it is clear that the details he gives relate to the death of Gratidianus. Orosius adds two new elements: the victim was dragged out of a goat-shed, and his head was sent to Praeneste (the latter possibly a confusion derived from Lucan's account, which, after dealing with the death of Gratidianus, goes on to describe what happened to the heads of those captured with the younger Marius at Praeneste).
7 Val. Max. 9.2.1: ‘quem per ora vulgi ad sepulcrum Lutatiae gentis pertractum, non prius vita privavit quam oculos infelicis erueret et singulas corporis partes confringeret’. I can find no evidence for the location of the tomb of the Lutatii; cf. below, n. 12.
8 Luc. 2.173–6: ‘…quid sanguine manes/placatos Catuli referam? cum victima tristes/inferias Marius forsan nolentibus umbris/pendit inexpleto non fanda piacula busto…’. Lintott, A. W., Violence in Republican Rome (Oxford, 1968), 40Google Scholar, makes the suggestion that the slaughter of a Marius by the tomb of the Lutatii might be a survival of the practice of making human sacrifice to the dead. The theme of just revenge (most noticeable in Luc. 2.173–6) could have been drawn from the fact that Gratidianus, as tribune in 87, launched the prosecution of Catulus, who anticipated the inevitable verdict by committing suicide (references and discussion in Gruen, E. S., Roman Politics and the Criminal Courts, 149–78 B.C. [Cambridge, Mass., 1968], 232–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar).
9 In the Catilina Sallust makes no mention of Catilina's involvement in Sullan atrocities, except in the most general terms (e.g. 5.2, 14.1–4, 15.3–5, 16.3).
10 For the date of Asconius' composition of his commentaries, see Madvig, J. N., De Q. Asconii Pediani…commentariis disputatio critica (Copenhagen, 1828), 4–5Google Scholar; Schanz-Hosius, , Geschichte der römischen Literatur 4 ii. 732Google Scholar; Benario, H. W., Historia 22 (1973), 65Google Scholar.
11 On the state of the question, with bibliography to 1972, see Ferey, D. and Deniaux, E., ANRW 1, 3 (1973), 241–3 and 248–56Google Scholar. One line of argument occasionally used by modern scholars to test the authenticity of the document is to compare the passages of Cicero's in toga candida with comm. pet. 10 on the death of Gratidianus. Tyrell, R. Y. and Purser, L. C., The Correspondence of Cicero 3 i. 124 and 159Google Scholar, argue that with regard to the death of Gratidianus ‘Cicero availed himself of the phraseology of this part of his brother's letter’: ‘inspectante populo’ is used in both, and for them ‘quod caput etiam tum plenum animae et spiritus…manibus ipsesuis detulit’ is taken from ‘vivo spiranti collum gladio sua dextera secuerit…caput sua manu tulerit’. The correspondences are discussed by Nardo, D., Il ‘Commentariolum Petitionis’, La propaganda elettorale nella ‘Ars’ di Quinto Cicerone (Padua, 1970), 36–9Google Scholar, with the conclusion that they help to prove the authenticity of the document. Nisbet, R. G. M., JRS 51 (1961), 86–7Google Scholar, arguing that the borrowings might have been made in the other direction, says that the lack of identification of the bustum by the author of the comm. pet. shows that the author, writing later, jumped to the conclusion that the bustum was meant for Gratidianus himself, failing to understand Cicero's oblique references to it (which he conjectures Cicero may have made). Balsdon, J. P. V. D., CQ n.s. 13 (1963), 249–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar, countering Nisbet's argument, says that if the comm. pet. were a contemporary document there would have been no need for the author to identify the bustum since it would be well known, and hence there is no need to assume a lack of identification. It is possible, of course, that by 64 (the date at which the comm. pet. would have been written if it were a genuine letter of Cicero's brother), the two versions had already become combined (for it was after all nearly twenty years since the event had taken place).
12 Tyrrell and Purser, op. cit. (n. 11), i. 159, commenting on comm. pet. 10, take bustum to refer to the bustum Basili on the via Appia near the city, which is described by Ascon. 50.7–9 as a place notorious for violence and robbery (‘locus latrociniis perinfamis’), though they note the other sources which locate the murder at the tomb of Catulus. Their identification is rejected by Nisbet, art. cit. (n. 11), 86.
13 Cf. his other topographical explanations at 27.1–5, 48.12–13, 50.7–9, 90.6–14.
14 McGushin, P., C. Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinae: a Commentary (Leiden, 1977), 195Google Scholar (on Sall. Cat. 34.3) conjectures that the relationship between Catilina and Catulus may have started from this incident.
15 Discussion of this trial, with references, can be found in Gruen, , Athenaeum 49 (1971), 59–62Google Scholar, and The Last Generation of the Roman Republic (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1974), 42 and 271Google Scholar. Oros. 6.3.1 reports that Q. Catulus assisted Catilina to gain acquittal.
16 L. Manlius Torquatus (cos. 65) spoke in his defence, and Cic. Sull. 81 says that other consulares supported him.
17 Note 35.1: ‘ …grata mihi magnis in meis periculis’, where periculis may well refer to the trials he faced.
18 See the stemma in Carney, T. F., A Biography of C. Marius (Proceedings of the African Classical Associations, Suppl. No. 1,1961), 77Google Scholar, and cf. Nicolet, C., REL 45 (1967), 276–7 and 290Google Scholar.
19 For the full passage, see below p. 132. The marriage is accepted by, e.g., Gelzer, M., RE 2A (1923), 1695Google Scholar, s.v. ‘Sergius’ no. 23; Syme, R., Sallust (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964), 85–6Google Scholar; Nicolet, art. cit. (n. 18), 290–1 (repeated in Mélanges d'histoire ancienne offerts à William Seston [Paris, 1974], 388)Google Scholar; Kaplan, A., Catilina (New York, 1968), 27Google Scholar; Manni, E., Lucio Sergio Catilina 2 (Palermo, 1969), 205 n. 1Google Scholar; Wiseman, T. P., New Men in the Roman Senate 139 B.C.–14 A.D. (Oxford, 1971), 240Google Scholar.
20 Cf. Ascon. 84.5–6, which also lists Q. Caecilius as one of Catilina's victims, along with M. Volumnius and L. Tanusius. For a discussion of these and other equestrian victims, see Nicolet, op. cit. (n. 19), 388 ff.
21 Sull. 32.2, Cic. 10.2. It is likely that the accounts in the comm. pet. and Plutarch are referring to the same event since frater, which presumably Plutarch saw in his source and translated as ⋯δελɸός, can mean ‘brother’ and ‘brother-in-law’.
22 Cic. Cat. 1.14; Sall. Cat. 15.2, 35.3; Val. Max. 9.1.9; App. B.C. 2.2. The anonymous wife was removed to make way for Aurelia Orestilla. One wife was supposedly the daughter of Catilina himself by an adulterous liaison with a noble lady; Asconius (91.27–92.3) confesses that he has not yet been able to find the name of this wife or her mother, but the allusion is presumably to Aurelia Orestilla (so Syme, op. cit. [n. 19], 85). The date of the marriage to Aurelia Orestilla (and the removal of the anonymous wife) is probably the mid-60s: Marshall, B. A., RFIC 105 (1977), 151–4Google Scholar.
23 Syme, op. cit. (n. 19), 85–6. Catilina did not join Sulla until late, ‘but then made up in ferocity against the Marians what he lacked in long service’ (Rawson, B., The Politics of Friendship: Pompey and Cicero [Sydney, 1978], 27Google Scholar; cf. Badian, E., JRS 52 [1962], 60Google Scholar [= Studies in Greek and Roman History, 229]).
24 Beesly, E. S., Catiline, Clodius and Tiberius (London, 1878), 20–2Google Scholar; Kaplan, op. cit. (n. 19), 27. Cf. Nicolet, op. cit. (n. 19), 388 (specifically rejecting Beesly and Kaplan).
25 For a discussion of this process, with matrix and general conclusions, in the case of Marius, see Carney, op. cit. (n. 18), 1–7.
26 Cic. Att. 1.2.1 (despite Cicero's claim in the previous letter that his guilt was as clear as the noonday sun). The case is discussed by Shackleton Bailey, D. R., Cicero's Letters to Atticus (Cambridge, 1965), i. 296Google Scholar, and Gruen, art. cit. (n. 15), 59–62 (who thinks that the extent of P. Clodius' collusion at the trial has been exaggerated). The trial did not take place until the second half of 65, since from Cicero's letter, written about the middle of July probably, we learn that by then the procedures had only reached the stage of the rejection of jurors.
27 For discussion of the dates of his praetorships, see MRR 2.59 n. 9, and Sumner, G. V., The Orators in Cicero's Brutus: Prosopography and Chronology (Toronto, 1973), 118–19Google Scholar. His great popularity is explained by the fact that during his first praetorship he anticipated a joint declaration agreed upon by his colleagues and supported by the tribunes, by issuing in his own name alone an edict establishing an office to test and eliminate debased coinage which had been issued under a law of M. Livius Drusus in 91 (Cic. off. 3.80–1; Plin. N.H. 33.46; Crawford, M. H., PCPS 194 [1968], 1–4Google Scholar, and Roman Republican Coinage [Cambridge, 1974], ii. 616Google Scholar; Shatzman, I., Senatorial Wealth and Roman Politics [Collection Latomus 142, Brussels, 1975], 205–6)Google Scholar. The statues, which were pulled down when Sulla entered the city, are mentioned by Plin. N.H. 33.132, 34.27.
28 Cf. fr. 10 P: ‘populum vero, cum inspectante populo collum secuit hominis maxime popularis, quanti faceret ostendit ’. And fr. 16 P: ‘[Would you, Catilina, seek to be awarded the consulship] a plebe? cui spectaculum eius modi tua crudelitas praebuit, ut [te] nemo sine gemituac recordatione luctus aspicere possit’
29 Sall. Cat. 59.3. It may well have been the same eagle which Cicero mentions at Cat. 1.24. Catilina may have secured it either as a personal trophy dating from his service under Sulla (so McGushin, op. cit. [n. 14], 284) or through the connection made with the Marii by his marriage to Gratidia (if such a marriage took place).
30 For the view that the two acquittals recorded by Cicero refer to the extortion trial in 65 and the murder trial in 64 and that Cicero deliberately omitted the acquittal in the incestum trial in 73 in order to spare the feelings of his wife, Terentia, the half-sister of Fabia (the Vestal with whom Catilina was involved: Ascon. 91.14–23; Plut. Cat. Min. 19.3; cf. Sall. Cat. 15.1 and Plut. Crass. 1.2), see Wirz, H., Catilina's und Cicero's Bewerbung urn den Consulat für das Jahr 63 (Zurich, 1864), 38 n. 1Google Scholar, and von Stern, E., Catilina und die Parteikämpfe in Rom der Jahre 66–3 (Dorpat, 1883), 53Google Scholar. Shackleton Bailey, op. cit. (n. 26) i. 319, argues that Catilina was never brought to trial in 73, so that Cicero must be referring only to the trials in 65 and 64. This whole question is examined in an unpublished paper by T. J. Cadoux.
31 For the details, see most recently Marshall, , Scripta Classica Israelica 3 (1976/1977), 135–7Google Scholar.
32 For example, there were moves, beginning in 66 and repeated on a number of occasions, to bring Faustus Sulla to court to make him hand over property appropriated by his father and thought to belong rightfully to the state (Ascon. 73.9–12; cf. Cic. leg. agr. 1.12), and during his quaestorship (64?) Cato is said to have tracked down persons who had received rewards from Sulla and made them give up money unjustly acquired (Plut. Cat. Min. 17.4).
33 A lex Cornelia de proscriptione formalised the proscriptions and provided that the proscribed might be killed with impunity (Cic. Rosc. Am. 125–6; cf. Plut. Sull. 31). The lex Valeria appointing Sulla as dictator retrospectively justified his actions (Cic. leg. agr. 3.5). Other references are collected in Rotondi, G., Leges Publicae Populi Romani (Milan, 1912), 348–9Google Scholar. Persons brought before the court de sicariis pleaded, therefore, that they had merely acted on the orders of Sulla as imperator and dictator (cf. Ascon. 91.7–8; ‘ …imperatori ac dictatori paruisse dicerent’).
34 Asconius says that Catilina was not made a reus until after he had suffered defeat in the consular elections (91.10–12), and that he underwent the trial on the charge inter sicarios a few months after the delivery of the speech. The lemma of Cicero, however, on which Asconius is commenting implies that Catilina had already been charged (unless it is wishful thinking on Cicero's part that Catilina would be hauled up before the court which had recently condemned other Sullan assassins). The lemma before that (90.16–18, especially ‘potes in defensione tua dicere’) also implies that Catilina was going to have to defend himself and therefore that he had already been charged. It is reasonable to assume that as the special court inter sicarios had already begun hearing cases before the elections, Catilina's case had been put on the list. It would be consistent with the statements of Cicero and the comments of Asconius to suggest that Catilina was charged before the consular elections but that the case was not actually heard until after the elections.
35 Such as the story that Catilina seduced an aristocratic lady and subsequently married the daughter born of this adulterous liaison (Ascon. 91.27–92.2). Asconius states that this item was taken from Lucceius' prosecution speech. Cf. above, n. 22.
36 Liv. per. 88, and Val. Max. 9.2.1 make Sulla directly responsible for Gratidianus' death. Cf. Plut. Sull. 32.2, Cic. 10.2 (n. 21 above).
37 Cf. also Ascon. 91.9–10: ‘huius autem criminis periculum quod obicit Cicero paucos post menses Catilina subiit’.
38 In general on the source problems for this period, see Strasburger, H., Caesars Eintritt in die Geschichte (Munich, 1938), 24–44Google Scholar; and on the contemporary historians, see Badian, , ‘The Early Historians’, in Dorey, T. A., ed., Latin Historians (London, 1966), 18 ffGoogle Scholar.
39 Cicero was born in 106 and would therefore have been in his middle twenties at the time of the Sullan proscriptions. Lucceius, as praetor in 67, would have to have been born at the latest by 107, and so was probably of much the same age as Cicero.
40 Badian, op. cit. (n. 38), 25. Plutarch refers to the work as ὑπομνήματα, what the Romans called res gestae (cf. Caesar's commentarii).
41 Sulla was, however, prepared not to give promotion to those of his henchmen who abused their position: cf. the case of Crassus mentioned in Plut. Crass. 6.7.
42 Badian, art. cit. (n. 23), 48–9 (= Studies, 208–9).
43 Fr. 1 P; cf. Plut. Luc. 1.3, 4.4.
44 In his youth he did write a history of the social war in Greek, choosing that language as the result of the drawing of lots (Plut. Luc. 1.5).
45 On the Lucceii in general, see McDermott, W. C., Hermes 97 (1969), 233–46Google Scholar. His attempt to distinguish the historian from the candidate for the consulship of 59 who contemplated a coitio with Caesar is unacceptable: see Stanton, G. R. and Marshall, B. A., Historia 24 (1975), 216Google Scholar. Even on McDermott's identifications, the historian is not to be distinguished from the prosecutor of Catilina.
46 For example, the scandalous charge that Catilina subsequently married the daughter born of an adulterous liaison, made by Lucceius (above, n. 35), was already known to Cicero (fr. 20 P = Ascon. 91.24–6).
47 See above, nn. 32 and 33.
48 The reading for this sentence is found in ms. B; the reading in C is figerium interfecit, obviously the result of an omission. For a discussion of the text at this point, see Usener, H., Rh. Mus. 19 (1864), 183–4Google Scholar.
49 Cicero had a great respect for Catulus: see Att. 1.20.3, and cf. Gruen, op. cit. (n. 15), 50–1. Cicero's attack on Catilina might have had implications for his relationship with Catulus (since Catilina had links with Catulus: see above, nn. 15–17), but he may have calculated that it would be less harmful to attack Catilina than to mention Catulus. The pre-eminence of Catulus as a leading optimate in the 60s (for a discussion, see Ward, A. M., Marcus Crassus and the Late Roman Republic [Columbia and London, 1977], 15–16)Google Scholar may explain why his name was suppressed as the executioner of Gratidianus. Catulus died in 61 or 60; it would have been about then that the version of Lucceius would be making its impact on the process of vilification of Catilina.
