quae tua est ista vita: Cicero begins this section with false sollicitude for Catiline's quality of life, isolated as it is from all good men. In other words, Cicero is now fakes concern for the very life that he has himself imagined for Catiline. As a result, this question seems to worry about what kind of life Catiline could possibly have (quae tua est vita?) at the same time that it continues to isolate and devalue Catiline's life, (ista vita). The topos: what sort of life do you have? is used to characterize Catiline first as a failed tyrant (hated and feared but ineffective) and then as anathema to the Fatherland.
enim announces that the sic sentence explains why Cicero has adopted an attitude of putative sollicitude for Catilines quality of life": "The reason I adopt this posture is that I am going to talk as if I pitied you."
non: emphatic non often looks forward to a sed.
quo: The antecedent, odio, is in the same case and construction; this allows the reader to supply the elipted words from the clause above: quo [odio permotus esse] debeo.
misericordia: The parallelism, this time with ut videar points to the elipted words.
tibi: the pronoun is in the enclitic position; nulla is therefore emphatic.
[*] The Quality of Life issue begins with a tiny narratio: just one event, and off of this Cicero builds an argumentum about the quality of Catiline's civic life in Rome.
tot goes with tuis amicis; it has moved forward in front of the prepositional phrase to mark the shift in emphasis form ex hac (i.e., the moral authority of this senate) to tot (the sheer numbers who refuse to greet Catiline). There is also a shift from ex tanta frequentia, the whole assembled body of Senators, to ex tuis, even your own friends. The two partitive expressions (quis ex tot) emphasize Catiline's civic and personal isolation.
amicis ac necessariis: amici, in the political sense, were those who supported one's political activities. They could be equals, but were frequently inferior in social standing and rank. necessarii were those who depended upon you and were indepensible to you. Within the family the ncecessarii were relatives (You can't get away from them.).
Si: Now Cicero pretends to reason. The logic, of course, works against Catiline: the silence that surrounds him replaces the attacks he might reasonably expect.
post hominum memoriam: We say in the memory of mankind vel sim.; the Romans said after the memory of mankind.
vocis: Emphatic, and as such it draws the verb to it: "is it words you expect, words of invective"; the implication of the question is that Catiline is foolish if he is waiting for the senators to be explicit about their hatred of him. Grammatically, vocis it goes with contumeliam: the contempt that consists in what people say (therefore, a genitive of material).
contumeliam: This term is also emphatic by virtue of being postponed after the verb: "words, I mean words of invective". There is, of course, sardonic humor in Cicero using his own invective to taunt Catiline for waiting for invective.
gravissimo: The phrase gravissimo iudicio contrasts with contumeliam: in place of invective with consists in words he gets the most serious judgment which consists in silence.
quid , quod: A common idiom for introducing a new fact or consideration: What about the fact that .?
adventu tuo: Ablatives at the beginning of sentences often set the scene, usually temporally (one could consider the ablative absolute as usually performing this function when it is in first position), sometimes spatially. Here, the phrase is an ablative of time.
subsellia: The seats or benches where the Senators sat. In the Temple of Jupiter, where Cicero convened the Senate, these would be temporary seats.
tibi: The Dative is taken with consitiuti ad caedem and it designates the person interested either in this action: either for you, in your plans, in your mind or for you, in your interests, by you. tibi is in enclitic position.
simul atque: temporal conjunction, as soon as
partem istam = that part, your part; iste is the second person demonstrative. It is used to designate what is close to or belongs to the person addressed and this designation usually means, by implication, not mine. The pejorative force of iste derives from this implication joined with the figurative or literal jesture of pointing. In most settings that of yours which is not mine is a hostile move; otherwise, we say ours, meaning that close to or belonging to both of us in this dialogue.
quo tandem: Note the echo of quo usque tandem?
Servi si me metuerent sets up the parallel ut te metuunt cives; servi and cives are both emphatic and contrasting in a chiastic structure.
isto pacto: isto pacto looks forward to the comparative ut; this is the second person pejorative version of sic ut . NOTE: you can tell that the ut-clause is not a result or purpose clause because the verb is in the indicative.
relinquendam: relinquendam (mihi esse) is the full expression of the indirect discourse.
tu tibi: strong contrast with the unexpressed ego of the previous sentence. The precise contrast is in the tu; the tibi is enclitic and is attracted to the emphasis on tu.
urbem: Contrasting with domum and carrying with it, therefore, the parallel expressions: urbem (tuam relinquendam) non arbitraris?
me meis: the me is probaby enclitic, attracted to the conjunction, while the meis is clearly emphatic because the possessive adjective is not necessary in the first place (what other citizens could Cicero mean?) and its typical position would be after the noun. Together, however, me meis is a collocation in which the two words reinforce each other.
civibus: Dative of the person judging, or the one in whose eyes he seems suspect and hateful. Cicero moves from an analogy between home and city based on a comparison between slaves who hate and citizens who hate, to an explicit comparison of unjust and just odium.
iniuria: Adverbial: unjustly. To fit it into an English translation along with the other adverb tam graviter, you will need to say either though unjustly or postpone tam graviter and take it with offensum. Does Cicero have in mind here the storms to come in 60 BCE when his own exile was beginning to appear on the horizon? Should we suspect that passages like this have been recast in light of the events of 60 BCE?
suspectum: The participle stands for suspectum esse, the infinitive in indirect discourse after viderem.
viderem: imperfect subjunctive in a present contrary to fact condition.
carere: The complementary infinitive phrase, carere me, is less frequent and more emphatic that the simple infinitive with mallem; both are instances of the infinitive as a verbal abstract being used as the object of the verb.
quam: malo come originally form magis volo, I want more or I prefer. It is, thus, in meaning a comparative and can take a comparative clause introduced by quam. The full expression of the core of the sentence is: mallem me carere quam me conspici [vellem].
Tu: Repeating the tactic and the form of the sentence above that began Tu tibi.
conscientia: Ablative of cause or, perhaps, even some metaphorical place where: in you conscience.
iustum: In contrast to iniuria, and expanded with et iam diu dibi debitum.
quorum: When the relative clause precedes its antecedent in Latin there are typically two devices that signal the main clause: first the relative clause is closed with a verb; second the antecedent is marked with a demonstrative.
volneras: Metaphorical, meaning offend, but with a reference to Catilines literal plans to murder the leaders of the state.
vitare: This is a complementary infinitive with dubitas. Note that dubitas may take one of three different constructions: dubitas facere = you hesitate to do; dubitas num ...= you doubt whether; and non dubitas quin ... = you don't doubt that ....
parentes: As above he moved from slaves to citizens taking the home as analogy to the state, so here he moves from parents to Patria, making explicit the analogy between home and state. What is at work in these analogies is the Roman idea of pietas, which refers to ones primary obligations to fathers, fatherland, and paternal gods.
odissent: Pluperfect subjunctive in a conditional; but since odi is defective, having only the perfect forms in usage, the pluperfect subjunctive is the equivalent to the imperfect subjunctive of other verbs (that is, it is parallel to posses). The condition is present contrary to fact.
aliquo: Adverbial: to some place or other.
patria: It is important to Ciceros strategy that he arrive here, because now he will be able to introduce a prosopoieia of the Patria, and this will allow him to assume the voice of the Fatherland. To speak with the voice of the Fatherland is, arguably, the goal and ethos of the consulship.
odit et metuit: this introduces the topos that Cicero will exploit here. The tyrants tag was oderint dum metuant = "let them hate me as long as they fear me." This indifference to the hatred of one's fellow citizens depends upon the effective use of power. In the case of Catiline, Cicero claims that the Romans fear and hate him, but that, since Cicero has everything under his watchful eye, Catiline will be able to accomplish nothing. As a result, the image of powerful indifference (oderint dum metuant) is emptied of its threat and Catiline is seen as the empty shell of a would-be tyrant.
Iudicat takes indirect discourse, the core of which is: iudicat: nihil te cogitare.
nisi de paricidio is grammatically parallel to nihil. This indicates that nihil is an internal accusative, or an adverbial accusative, the equivalent to de nulla re.
tu: enclitic, leaning on the emphasis that huius receives as the first word in its clause and as the structural marker that points back to Patria.
agit: agere has many meanings in Latin (actually it is the verb for the zero-degree of action, any action, depending on context; cf. actus), but one of its most common has to do with "legal actions", that is prosecution. Here, the Fatherland begins as if in a legal action: this is a complaint lodged against Catiline and the counsel for the plaintif is the consul.
quodam modo: quidam is used frequently in Latin to apologize for a figure of speech, here the prosopoeia of the Fatherland, the non-literal reality that Cicero will now stage.
tacita: This is not just Roman literalness, but also a reminder that Ciceros posture throughout presents him as one who speaks for the silent. One may compare the prosopoeia of Appius Claudius Caecus in the pro Caelio: qui pro me loquatur ne mihi ista forte suscenseat. (33): In the pro Caelio, Cicero does not say that Caecus talks silently, but both makes a joke and reminds his audience of the problem that Clodia's enmity has created. In other words, in using both prosopoeias Cicero thematizes the invention and directs attention to underlying issues of the speech.
Nullum: The structure of the speech is simple; it depends upon the formal repetition (in anaphora and polyptoton) of nullum and tu. The structure recalls the structure of a kletic hymn, that is, a hymn that calls upon the help of a god. See the analysis of Ratkowitsch, Wiener Studien 1981: nullum nisi per te; nullum sine te; tibi uni ; tibi ; tu non solum verum etiam . Superiora illa tuli; nunc vero... totam ... propter unum te , quidquid Catilinam, nullum quod a tuo; Quam ob rem(with prayer). The content of this hymn, however, is the content of an apotropaic hymn, that is, a prayer that sends or keeps away a religious abomination. Thus, Cicero turns a fairly predictable charge of impiety into a literary inversion that parallels and mocks Catilines character and actions. The perverted human and the failed tyrant is paralleled by the inverted hymn to an abomination.
aliquot: a certain number several
annis: Ablative of time when, within these several years; the ablative of time is used with a negative expression in circrumstances in which one would use the accusative of duration if the expression were positive.
per te: Note the positions of per te and sine te at clause end and of tibi... tibi... at clause beginning: neither are enclitic and both positions are emphatic.
flagitium: Supply the elipsis from the parallel above. The elipsis helps the underlying hymnic structure sound more clearly.
neces: Perhaps a reference to Catilines role in the Sullan proscriptions in 80 BCE.
sociorum: After being praetor in 68 BCE, Catiline was governor in N. Africa in 67. Allegations about his abuse of power, which arrived in Rome even before his year as governor was over, prevented him from being a candidate for the consulship in 65BCE when he was prosecuted for extortion and misgovernment.
neglegendas: The gerundives of the Fatherlands speech echo the gerundives of Ciceros consular voice. Thus, as the Fatherland lends the authority of its voice to the consul (within the fiction of this prosopoieia), and as Cicero gives expression to the fears of others, the voice of the Fatheland and the voice of the consul become indistinguishable.
leges: This and the following is strandard political invective. One should not try too hard to connect such allegations with specific actions. See above note.
valuisti: valeo means to be strong, have power, prevail; and here is best taken as "exercise your abilities"; this allows one to translate the ad + gerundive in a way that indicates that the purpose of Catiline's strength and exercise of strength was to overturn the laws and legal assemblies. The phrase does not make good sense with ad neglegendas leges, however, and that is because the final verb, valuisti, is chosen to go with ad evertendas perfringendasque [leges et quaestiones], not with the relatively tame ad neglegendas.
ferenda: You may take this either as unbearable in the moral sense, things that should not be born, or unbearable in the literal sense, things that could not be born.
nunc: Present circumstances in contrast to superiora illa.
esse: The infinitive is a neuter noun; this allows it to be the object of a verb of saying, for instance, (dico id: me hic esse. = I say that thing: that I am here) or the subject of an impersonal (id licet: legere = that thing is allowed, reading). Here, the infinitive phrases will all become the subject of non est ferendum; it will be best to translate the fact that (me esse in metu), the fact that (Catilinam timeri), the fact that (nullum videri) that is not to be endured.
metu: Compare Ciceros fears, e.g., at 11: magno me metu liberabis. While Cicero pretends to speak here for the fears of the State, the echoes suggest that already when he spoke of his own fears he was speaking of the the fears of the State. Thus, through self-reference Cicero suggests the truth of his earlier statement: videbam perniciem meam cum magna calamitate rei publicae esse coniunctam (11).
quidquid increpurerit: whatever sound is heard; quidquid act as if it were si quid = if any sound is heard.
videri ... iniri posse: With two verbs that can take complementary infinitives, there are several possibilities here. Try them all and think about the relationship between ambiguity and meaning. Consider: it cannot be endured that it seems that no plan can be undertaken against me without you? Wouldnt that mean that the Patria is complaining that there is no equal opportunity for criminal activity? videri is in enclitic position emphasizing nullum.
quam ob rem: Connective relative in a sentence conjunction: and for this reason
ne: Purpose clause after eripe.
tandem aliquando: Note yet another echo of the temporal impatience that has marked this speech from the beginning.