User:Ifly6/Catiline
Ancient Roman senator who attempted a coup against the republic / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Catiline
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Catiline | |
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Born | Lucius Sergius Catilina 108 or 106 BC |
Died | early January 62 BC |
Nationality | Roman |
Occupation(s) | General and politician |
Known for | Catilinarian conspiracy |
Parents |
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Lucius Sergius Catilina (108 or 106 BC – January 62 BC), known in English as Catiline (/ˈkætəlaɪn/), was a Roman patrician, soldier and politician. He is best known for the Catilinarian conspiracy, an attempted coup d'état against the Roman Republic.
Born to a ancient patrician family, he joined Sulla during Sulla's civil war and profited from Sulla's purges of his political enemies, becoming a wealthy man. In the early 60s, he served as praetor and then as governor of Africa. Upon his return to the city, he attempted to stand for the consulship but was rebuffed; he then was beset with legal challenges over alleged corruption in Africa and his actions during the proscriptions. Acquitted on all charges with the support of influential friends from across Roman politics, he stood for the consulship twice in 64 and 63 BC.
Twice defeated in the consular comitia, he concocted to a violent plot to take the consulship by force, bringing together poor rural plebs, Sullan veterans, and other senators whose political careers had stalled. The coup attempt, involving armed uprisings in Etruria, was revealed to the consul Cicero in October 63 BC but it took until November before evidence of Catiline's participation emerged. Discovered, he left the city to join his rebellion. In early January 62 BC, at the head of a rebel army near Pistoria (modern day Pistoia), he fought a battle with republican forces; Catiline was killed and his army annihilated.
Catiline's name became a byword for doomed and treasonous rebellion in the years after his death. Sallust, in his monograph on the conspiracy, Bellum Catilinae, painted Catiline as a symbol of the republic's moral decline.