Cataline

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This is such a great picture!

Above is the celebrated painting by Ceasare Maccari of Cicero denouncing Senator Lucius Sergius Catalina.  A distinguished military commander, he served under Strabo during the social wars.  He was a supporter of Sulla when that savage man seized power, and supposedly murdered his own brother in law and put his head at Sulla's feet in the temple of Apollo.  Prosecuted for this and acquitted.  Accused of adultery with the Vestal Virgin Fabia, a relative of Cicero's, prosecuted for that and acquitted.  Defeated in his attempt at being elected Consul, he began raising an army.  Cicero accused him of treason and conspiracy yet never presented a shred of evidence, indeed, holding up documents in the senate as proof, documents no one ever read except in book form.  Joseph McCarthy used the same method in denouncing mythical communists and for the same reason, acquisition of power through fear.  Indicted for treason and conspiracy, Cataline joined up with his army, now reduced to three thousand men.  In the ensuing battle against 3 Roman legions*, all three thousand men were found with the wounds in front.  Cataline had cut his way through the legion's lines and was found yards in front of his men.
Cicero was a devious politician who definitely framed Cataline.  The upper class was afraid of him because he stood for debt relief and the lot of the common man.  He was no angel, but he did not lift his sword against Rome until he was condemned.  We do not know the extent of his plans.  As always, the story has been written entirely by the winning side.  His name became a byword for evil and perversion, but even the historian Sallust, who hated him, refused to heap calumny on him and praised his courage.  Cicero was murdered on Mark Anthony's orders for condemning him as a dictator, in public no less.  Squeaky wheels got the chop in Rome.
I admire Cataline.  I could see dying a worse death than trying to overthrow the criminals and fools running my country. If my country was in the hands of such people.  Of course that could never happen here, our leaders are all of the highest character.

https://misterscribbles.blogspot.com/2017/07/sulla.html

*A Roman legion was comprised of 6000 citizen soldiers and as many auxiliaries, in theory fielding 12,000 men.
 

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