By the 60s BCE, Roman government had effectively broken down. Pompey, Caesar and Crassus were coming up to full war, while every aspect of government was poisoned with bribery, violence and uncertainty. In the middle of this, Catiline was a low-level rapscallion who wanted to make a name for himself by somehow violently overthrowing the consulship and perpetrating a lot of murders in the name of the disenfranchised people of Rome. Unfortunately for him, Cicero was the consul and Cicero was no Mucius Scaevola. As soon as Cicero found out about Catiline’s conspiracy, he had Catiline executed
...more
