Catiline and the "Concordia Ordinum" - Historia Antigua

20 THE PHOENIX
his banner.25 This Caesarian party was revolutionary in that it wished
to supplant the ruling clique; it was progressive in that its actions
ultimately made possible social, economic, and political changes that
brought life in the Mediterranean area to a higher social and economic
plane than had ever been reached before. The groups of aristocrats
with which Caesar surrounded himself were little more than the instruments
needed in the political struggle. The significant elements usually
stayed in the background, although history has recorded the continual
advice and services of so capable a business man as Balbus. But in
and around 63 B.C. the anti-optimate elements were not as yet knit, as
they were later, into a united party.
In discussing the events of 63 B.C., therefore, one must first of all
reckon with a well-organized, dominant clique-the Family Compact,
or optimates. Opposed'to it was a number of disunited, opposition
groups, varying in their antipathy to the optimates. There were the
tax-farmers, an unstable group. There were men of wealth and property
in Italy and the provinces, many of them interested primarily in trade,
whose hatred of the Family Compact was more deep-rooted and permanent.
There were many hard-pressed aristocrats whose personal
aspirations made them a source of danger to the ruling group. And
there were numerous other groups, lower down in the social scale, whose
dissatisfaction could easily be turned to advantage by anyone who
wished to exploit it. Lastly there were Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar,
who wanted to lead one or more of these groups to break the power of
the clique in control and replace it with their own clique.26
II
Before dealing with the events of 63 B.C., it is necessary to consider
the position of Cicero and Catiline in relation to the political groups
already in existence. For, in some respects, 63 B.C. was the culmination
of what had gone before.
By birth Cicero was of the eqestrian order, and, although he disliked
the depredations of the tax-farmers in the provinces as much as he did
those of unenlightened aristocratic governors, basically he had the
interests of the tax-farmers at heart.27 His forensic and political career,
however, had been under the aegis of certain noble houses. Strasburger
5The wars between Rome and Parthia may have been caused by commercial
rivalry for control of the overland trail to China (J. W. Thompson, Economic and Social
History of the Middle Ages (New York, 1928), 22 ff.).
26The relative importance of the individual and the group in determining the
course of history is a highly debatable problem. It is not to be denied that Caesar,
Pompey, and Crassus had strong personal ambitions and that the course which Roman
history took from 70 B.C. to 49 B.C. was in large part the product of their respective
drives for supremacy. But what is often overlooked is that the desires of the groups
to which these men appealed for support helped to determine the policies and actions
of these men. If this article seems to over-emphasize this point it is simply to correct
the balance. There is no intention of minimizing the role of the powerful individuals
involved.
27Cicero, Ad Quintum Fratrem, I. 1. 32 ff.