execution should appear, not as an act of violence or panic on the part of the magistrate, but as the deliberate judgment of the supreme council of the State, which had seen the proofs of guilt and heard the confessions of the prisoners. By confirming the action of the consul, the Senate, though it could take no legal responsibility off his shoulders, could yet give him moral support to justify his severity from the charge of cruelty and tyranny.[1]
Cicero's action throughout seems then to have been both righteous and prudent. He never lost his head though pressed by open enemies without and beset with traitors within the city. He refrained from striking prematurely, but allowed time for Catiline to appear in the rebel camp and for Lentulus to commit himself by overt acts of treason. He made the guilt of the conspirators so manifest, that even Cæsar was obliged to concur in the verdict of "Guilty," and to sanction it by proposing an alternative sentence as on convicted criminals. He baffled all attempts within the city by his vigilance, and finally blasted the hopes of Catiline by the exe-
- ↑ Cicero sometimes does injustice to his own case by yielding (as most orators are liable to yield) to the temptation of proving too much. In the process of refuting the charge of cruelty (as he is fully entitled to do) by alleging the concurrence of the Senate, he is led on to use expressions which seem to evade his own legal responsibility for the decision (e.g. In Pis., 7, 14). That Cicero, nevertheless, really strengthened his cause by this consultation seems to have been recognised by his adversaries; for they found it worth their while to assert that Cicero had forged the Senatus Consultum. This absurd invention found a place in the preamble of Clodius' decree of banishment (Pro Domo, 19, 59).
