Cicero and Catiline: A Big Political Mess

In light of the terrible events this past week, I felt like looking to the past for similar events in history, and the Catiline Conspiracy came to mind. This was an attempt by Lucius Sergius Catilina, who lost the consular election that year, to (quite literally) overthrow the Republican government. One fo the two consuls that year, Marcus Tullius Cicero (a.k.a. “Cicero”), was given legal authority to snuff out the conspiracy by any means necessary.

The awesome Youtube channel Historia Civilis, does a really nice video on this, so rather than hear me rehash this (poorly), I recommend the video instead:

It’s important to point out that just because recent events might have similarities to ancient Roman politics, that doesn’t mean they are always the same, nor should the same solution necessarily be applied. But it is fascinating how human history tends to fall into certain patterns across the centuries.