"Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?" ("just how much longer, Catiline, will you abuse our patience?")- so began Cicero's first famous oration against a certain Lucius Sergius Catilina.
A man of patrician rank, and having earned massive wealth from the campaigns of Sulla's civil war, Catiline held huge potential as a young boy- eager and ambitious, he applied for the highest Roman office upon his return to Rome in 66 BCE, after serving as praetor and governor of Africa. He stood for election with a conviction that he would become the next consul, yet he was rebuffed; he then was beset with legal challenges over alleged corruption in Africa, most commonly murder and rape, and his actions during Sulla's proscriptions (83 – 82 BC). Acquitted on all charges with the support of influential friends from across Roman politics, he stood for the consulship again in 64 and 63 BC, only to find heartbreaking results.
The loss of the consulship in 63 BCE to Marcus Tullius Cicero and Gaius Antonius Hybrida, who was a friend of Catiline, was the final straw that broke the camel's back. After becoming bankrupt and losing supports like Caesar and Crassus after his failed campaigns, he resorted to violence.
Catiline was perhaps most famous for his Catilinarian Conspiracy, an attempted coup-de'etat to overthrow the government and seize power for himself.
The first rumours of an attempt to kill politicans and to burn the city of Rome came from a women known as Fulvia, and despite Cicero forwarding the information as once to the senate, people casted their doubts. Nonetheless, Cicero hired a bodyguard which would prove to be a wise decision for, on November 7, 63 BCE, there was indeed an attempt on his life, which he survived, thanks to Fulvia's attacks.
On 18 or 19 October in 63 BCE, more rumours were brewing as Crassus and two other senators paid a surprise visit to Cicero's house on Oppian Hill, delivering to the consul letters which warned Cicero of Catiline's plot to massacre a group of leading politicans. A few days later, in late October, an ex-praetor reported that Gaius Manlius- a supporter of Catiline- had secretly raised an army in Etruria. Catiline tried to defend himself in front of the senate by verbally attacking Cicero and offering himself to be put under house arrest. However, one night, he escaped from house arrest with 300 men to join forces with Gaius Manlius. All allegations were proven true and the senate immediatly passed a senatus consultum ultimum, which empowered the consuls to do whatever actions they believed necessary for state securty.
Things soon aggravated as the conspirators aimed to persuade Allobroges from Gaul, seeing their high tax burden, to join their movement by instigating a revolt in the Roman province. However, the Gauls turned in the conspirators and fed all they knew to Cicero.
After the conspirators had been arrested, there was another disagreement brewing within the Senate as people argued what should be done to the conspirators. Some, led by Caesar, believed it was unfair to execute people without trial, yet others, led by Cato the Younger, believed that Rome must not tolerate these conspiratos and they should be killed. Cicero, now hailed as pater patria (father of the fatherland) sided with Cato and the conspirators were executed.
Although Catiline was able to escape with an army, he was eventually defeated by his former ally- Antonius Hybrida.
This conspiracy might not have caused as huge repercussions as other events, like the Gracchi reforms or Sulla's civil war, but nonetheless showed the moral decay and political instability during the late Republican period, and some ambitious Romans were able to get a glimpse of the increasingly frail society, and these ambitious Romans would later attempt to control it.