How to Stop a Conspiracy: An Ancient Guide to Saving a Republic

by Sallust

One especially powerful exploration of conspiracy—including the problem of distinguishing between claims of conspiracy and the real thing—is a short book written in the late 40s BC, Sallust’s The War against Catiline. The first foray of Sallust into history-writing, The War against Catiline recounts a plot by the corrupt aristocrat Lucius Sergius Catilina (known in English as “Catiline”) to topple the Republic in the year 63 BC. As alluring as he was dangerous, Catiline attracted a wide array of supporters: men and women from prominent families who had run up debts; impressionable youths eager for sex, money, or other favors; and the impoverished inhabitants of Rome fed up with a political class that seemed only to look out for its own interests.