[1] When, then, it was Caesar’s turn to give his opinion, he rose and declared it to be against putting the conspirators to death, but in favour of confiscating their property and removing them to whatever cities of Italy Cicero might deem best, there to be put in fetters and closely guarded until Catiline should be defeated.
[2] The proposal of Caesar was merciful and its author a very able speaker, and Cicero added no little weight to it. For when he rose to speak himself,
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he handled the subject in both ways, now favouring the first proposal and now that of Caesar. All his friends, too, thinking that Caesar’s proposal was an advantageous one for Cicero, who would be less subject to censure if he did not put the conspirators to death, chose the second proposal rather,
[3] so that Silanus also changed his position and excused himself by saying that even his proposal had not meant death: for
extremest punishment, in the case of a Roman senator, meant the prison. Lutatius Catulus was the first to oppose the opinion which Caesar had given; then Cato followed him, helping by the vehemence of his speech to fix suspicion upon Caesar, and filled the senate with angry resolution, so that a decree of death was passed upon the conspirators.
[4] As regarded the confiscation of their property, however, Caesar made opposition, deeming it wrong that the merciful part of his own proposal should be rejected and the one part that was most severe adopted. And when many of the senators insisted upon it, he invoked the aid of the tribunes, but they would not listen to his appeal; Cicero himself, however, yielded the point, and remitted that part of the vote which called for confiscation.
Cicero. Plutarch. Bernadotte Perrin (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1919.
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