Let’s Call It What It Is — Treason

Twenty-one centuries on, Cicero’s dead, but not forgotten.

We remember him as an orator. He brought Greek logic to Rome, and coined more than a few of the terms we use in debate, but he did much more than talk. Cicero was a man of action, and now, more than any time in our nation’s 242 year history, we need someone willing to act.

In 63 BC Cicero uncovered a plot hatched by Catilina, a senator, and Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura, a former consul, and a group of foreigners known as the Allobroges. Their goal was to overthrow the Roman Republic.

Cicero denounced Catilina, and induced the Allobroges to turn over Catilina’s communiques, proving the plot and Catilina’s involvement.

The Senators debated the plotters’ fates; some argued for banishment, others for lifetime imprisonment, but all knew life in prison is seldom for life, and if banished, the plotters could have renewed the plot beyond Rome’s grip.

When it came time to vote, the Senators agreed with Cicero— the best way to dissuade anyone from trying to overthrow the Republic from within was to execute these plotters.

They were executed, and Cicero penned his then famous, and now all but forgotten words: