Marcus Tullius Cicero was a man who had good rhetoric, was born about 106 BC and died around 43 BC. Cicero used the knowledge of the great rhetoric he owned to lawyer, statesman, and a scholar during his times. Lucius Sergius Catiline (or just Catiline) whom lived around 108 BC to 62 BC. He has served as a Roman soldier and a senator.
Cicero made several speeches indicating of the threat Catiline is going to cause, saying that he will rid of the Roman senate. In my opinion, Cicero practiced great resentment while presenting this speech, because all the hatred he is displaying of him in front of everyone is really hard to handle. He pushed him very hard and did everything he could so he would give up. Even if that meant saving himself by using other sneaky tactics. Cicero had embarrassed and looked down upon Catiline very severely. Let me present you a few moments from his speech showing how greatly Cicero disliked Cataline.
“Be gone from the city, O Catiline, deliver the republic from fear; depart into banishment.” “Overwhelm all the enemies of good men, the foes of the republic, the robbers of Italy … with eternal punishments.“ Just by looking at these 2 phrases, we can tell how much Cicero just wanted to get rid of him, making sure to get deep into his core giving him a hint that no one wants him here and that he should just accept defeat.
If I were to be in place of Catiline, I would justify myself with the wrong accusations placed on me and admit onto the ones that I have committed. I wouldn’t let Cicero just challenge me to say something back and have him shut me off the next second. I would shut him off back and defend for myself respectfully. We know that Cicero likes to hear himself talk. Even though he may be right about some of the things about Catiline, that doesn’t give him right to shut him off like that. When you’re in the court (even if it’s hard) you still have to respect the other person and let the senate or the judges hear their side of the story as well. Once they’ve done their investigations and spoken their final thoughts, then they could judge in the way that would be right and fair to everyone.
At the same time, however, Catiline has done some things in which Cicero accused of him for, were not right and it was only fair that he would be punished. It’s also not right to just bring up new topics or put certain words to purposely offend the other person. Cicero would cheat his way into getting what he wants or thinks is right. He may talk a lot but I could imagine he got that far due to his skills of rhetoric of course. He was well prepared for certain, dug up everything he could find on him, put a lot of effort into persuading the senate that Catiline is not to be trusted.
That’s about all for today, I hope you liked this essay or maybe learned something from it. I’ll be posting more soon and have a great day!
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