How to Stop a Conspiracy: An Ancient Guide to Saving a Republic

"In 63 BC the corrupt aristocrat Lucius Sergius Catilina (Catiline in English) aimed to topple the Roman Republic. Catiline attracted a wide array of supporters: debt-ridden men and women from prominent families, youths looking for adventure, the less well-off tried of a political class that seemed only to look out for its own interests. Frustrated in his efforts to be elected consul, Catiline fled Rome while several of his associates stayed behind with secret plans to torch the city and murder its leading politicians. The story of Catiline and his conspiracy is recounted by the Roman historian Sallust in his short book, The War with Catiline Sallust's account culminates with the unmasking of these urban conspirators at a meeting of the Senate, followed by a stormy debate that led to their execution, and then the ultimate defeat of Catiline and his legions in battle. While Catiline is at the heart of the story, some of the most important figures of Roman history play key roles in the story: Cicero, the ambitious young senator who calculated how best to protect Rome; Julius Caesar, who delivers a memorable speech defending the conspirators against execution; and Cato, an ardent defender of the Republic. Catiline himself is a fascinating figure - a bitter and haunted man, determined to destroy Rome, yet sympathetic to the plight of struggling Romans. This book offers a new translation of Sallust's account of the thwarted conspiracy framed for a contemporary audience. As the translator Josiah Osgood notes in his introduction, Sallust's work is not limited to just recounting the conspiracy but engages with broader questions, still relevant today, about how republics flourish and how they break down. Sallust also poignantly describes how the corruption of Rome's leaders, worried less about the common good and more about their own advancement, spread like a disease through Roman society. Claims of conspiracy, across the political spectrum, have abounded in our time much as they did in Ancient Rome. While Catiline's plot was real and the charges of conspiracy well-founded, Osgood aims to show how Sallust's short work can help us to think about the allure of explaining the world through conspiracies, both real and imagined. This makes it a still useful source ofwisdom for reflecting on a very real problem for contemporary republics"--
An energetic new translation of an ancient Roman masterpiece about a failed coup led by a corrupt and charismatic politicianIn 63 BC, frustrated by his failure to be elected leader of the Roman Republic, the aristocrat Catiline tried to topple its elected government. Backed by corrupt elites and poor, alienated Romans, he fled Rome while his associates plotted to burn the city and murder its leading politicians. The attempted coup culminated with the unmasking of the conspirators in the Senate, a stormy debate that led to their execution, and the defeat of Catiline and his legions in battle. In How to Stop a Conspiracy, Josiah Osgood presents a brisk, modern new translation of the definitive account of these events, Sallust’s The War with Catiline—a brief, powerful book that has influenced how generations of readers, including America’s founders, have thought about coups and political conspiracies.In a taut, jaw-dropping narrative, Sallust pleasurably combines juicy details about Catiline and his louche associates with highly quotable moral judgments and a wrenching description of the widespread social misery they exploited. Along the way, we get unforgettable portraits of the bitter and haunted Catiline, who was sympathetic to the plight of Romans yet willing to destroy Rome; his archenemy Cicero, who thwarts the conspiracy; and Julius Caesar, who defends the conspirators and is accused of being one of them.Complete with an introduction that discusses how The War with Catiline has shaped and continues to shape our understanding of how republics live and die, and featuring the original Latin on facing pages, this volume makes Sallust’s gripping history more accessible than ever before.