Catilina
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Lucius Sergius Catilina (108 BC–62 BC), known in English as Catiline, was a Roman politician of the 1st century BC who is best known for the Catiline (or Catilinian) conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Roman Republic, and in particular the power of the aristocratic Senate.
One of the most enigmatic figures of Roman history, Catiline has been obscured by the invective of his historians. The two chief sources for information on Catiline possessed numerous reasons to depict him in the worst possible light. Marcus Tullius Cicero, his most bitter political enemy, spared no denunciation particularly in his Catiline Orations, and Gaius Sallustius attributed some of the vilest crimes to him in his moralistic monograph, Bellum Catilinae. Thus, many of the gravest accusations such as human sacrifice are likely fabrications employed to further their author's designs. However, Catiline's conspiracy is one of the most famous events of the turbulent final century of the Roman Republic.
