Was Catiline a prime example of a revolutionary?

Catilina a parade example of a revolutionary?

Using a common definition (duden) of “Parade Example”: “Example with which something particularly impressive can be demonstrated“, then you should deny the question.

Is there the “parade example of a revolutionary?” You can discuss it very well. Does a “revolutionary” necessarily have to be political? There is no scientific, technical, chemical, etc. “Revolutionaries”? So it doesn’t always have to be a political revolutionary!

Without a question, Catilina must be regarded as a political revolutionary who has tried to lean against the given state order, the Roman Republic – more precisely, against the senatorial, noble upper layer he himself belonged -. Here it is already apparent that Catilina was not necessarily the typical revolutionary.

We don’t know much about him. What we know, the politician Cicero has handed us over to his (reworked) speeches and the Roman historian Sallust. Sallust and Cicero drew the image of a characteristically questionable, over-indebted Lebemanns Catilina, who first enriched himself, then had highly indebted. Catilina was not very successful in the senatorial upper class competition for high state offices, which opened up the possibility of non-inhibiting enrichment by subsequent provincial administrations, which brought him into precarious financial needs. In this situation, Catilina remained two options: either to suffer the social descent or to rise up against his noble counterparts. Cicero and Sallust interpret these options as conspiracy or Uprising against the Republic. But was it not about “Ehre/honor”, as later Caesar, and about success in internal competition for political influence?

War Catilina Revolutionary, who had political objectives, or only a conspirator or Insurgent on his own? We’re not sure about Catilina’s real goals. Cicero, who had revealed the conspiracy of Catilinas as Consul, presented his own performance by painting the threat of Catilina in blackest colors. Sallust also saw only egoism and material self-interest at Catilina, not a revolutionary, but only a conspirator. We don’t know Catilina’s view of things.

In the context of Roman history, Catilina’s work must be classified. History sees the century before the foundation of principle by Augustus as a revolutionary age. The cripples (they wanted economic reforms at the expense of the senate), Marius (a social riser who had to defend himself against the native senate), Sulla (he supported the senate against political power constraints by rising social groups, quite a social revolutionary), Pompeius (he wanted to play the role of a gray eminence in the Senate and was disappointed when this was denied to him) Antonius (he lost himself in the dark circle of Hellenistic monarchy) and finally Octavianus/Augustus (without a question a political revolutionary who largely eradicated the old Senate and provided the Republic with a monarchical tip) – in principle, all have rebelled against their peers and reclaimed partly reforms of the Republic, society, partly merely personal enrichment. Catilina must also be placed in this series. We do not know more about him, an exact assignment – political revolutionary with monarchical ambitions; Social-revolutionary (always he recruited his followers and co-conspirators from Senate and Knighthood); Egoist with the aim of material enrichment a la Verres – is hardly possible. Sallust has also given Catilina positive qualities: he fought bravely with his small private army and fell in battle – exemplary for an “old Roman”!

Maybe Catilina was a “revolutionary”, maybe just a “conspirator”, but a “parallel example of a revolutionary” probably wasn’t.

Stay healthy!

Arnold