Talk:Catilinarian orations

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Sma.tucson, Gianninar, Ldavidson1. Peer reviewers: Discusandhammer.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 16:59, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

"News" section
I live in a country that has recurrent political scandals, and I think I must have seen Quousque tandem BadPolitician abutere patienta nostram and O tempora o mores screamed over ten times in Parliament since ~2005. It's a superficial display of erudition everybody loves and also says "come on, confess already, you have already politically lost".

This has probably been the case in parliaments and courts for the millenia that separates us from Cicero. It's not like no one knew about him in the late 1990s!--Dnavarro (talk) 14:50, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

New Edits
There is a lack of context surrounding the orations that can be built upon, also numerous Greek & Roman scholars in the centuries after the orations discuss the events in different lights. The tone of the article does not paint Cicero in a friendly light despite most of the documents to have survived the era. Each scholar has a different historical perspective lending credence to or questioning Cicero's statements. Given that this is one of the most well documented events of the ancient world, the article is missing some formative pieces.

Potential Sources: Beard, Mary. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome. London: Profile, 2016. Print. Henderson, John. "First Oration of Cicero Against Catiline with Notices, Notes and Complete Vocabulary." Project Gutenburg (n.d.): n. pag. 31 Mar. 2008. Web. Wasson, Donald L. "Cicero & the Catiline Conspiracy." Ancient History Encyclopedia. N.p., 3 Feb. 2016. W Ldavidson1 (talk) 06:47, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

untitled
The link at the bottom: "The four Cataline Orations in Latin, in a single text file" Shouldn't that be "... Catiline .."?

Yes, it's a common mistake/typo (to type cataline instead of catiline)Papadilos 07:43, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

broken link
the UAH link to the Catiline Orations is broken as of 19 February 2006. -- Richard Lee (rlee@glasscity.net)


 * The | cicero.missourstate.edu/~cicero/Orationes link is broken as of today. Its owner last maintained it 23 June 2008. --Eldin raigmore (talk) 17:31, 29 October 2009 (UTC) --Eldin raigmore (talk) 18:51, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

shenanigans
"Cicero in self-righteous indignation issued a law prohibiting shenanigans of this kind."

I am troubled by more than the misplaced folksiness of 'shenanigans'. Bribery was far from unusual in Roman electoral politics; this article makes it sound like a particularly Catilinarian crime.

Could we have a reference for this law, please? TheOldOligarch 23:58, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Since the term has been replaced, I removed the "unfit style"-tag.Asav 08:59, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

3 orations only described in article.
The links in the bottom of the article have four orations, but our article only describes three. Would be interesting if the contents of the fourth could be at least briefly summarised. -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. 12:27, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I have replaced the previous section about the fourth argument, sice it was a cut-and-paste, see []. Asav 08:54, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Catiline Page
The dichotomy between the anti-Catiline, pro-Cicero bias of this page and the pro-Catiline, anti-Cicero bias of the 'Catiline' page is a tad depressing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.8.98 (talk) 10:57, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Death of Catiline
The way the second Catilinarian is written up it makes it sound as if Catiline were killed before the third oration! Can this be changed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.169.238 (talk) 13:41, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

There are so many mistakes in this article that it might be better to delete the whole thing. The point made immediately above is probably the worst. The Latin titles of the speeches, printed in bold, are a complete dog's dinner. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.215.243.74 (talk) 00:28, 29 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Have the titles been changed since that message was left? Does anyone know where these titles came from? They could be replaced with the ones on thelatinlibrary.com if anyone thinks those are better.--15lsoucy (talk) 05:24, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

"Outlandish" bribery
Bribery in Roman politics was hardly outlandish... a more accurate description would be something like "chronic" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.10.12.9 (talk) 04:36, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I suggest Quousque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? be merged into this article. The title is clearly misspelt and most of the information is on the speech as a whole. The exception is an unsourced assertion that people sometimes say this line "in a dolorous tone" to accuse people of hypocrisy, which I struggle to believe. --131.111.128.77 (talk) 20:21, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I've just replaced the page with a redirect. As far as I can tell, there's nothing sourced that isn't already duplicated in this article. --131.111.128.77 (talk) 20:19, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Suggestions
i see the titles have been updated. The introduction says it is one of the most well documented events in the ancient world, yet many statements could be cited, and overall the page has very few references. I think the lead section has too many overly long sentences which detract from the point of an introduction. The encyclopedic tone throughout the page remains solid, but i think too many words are used to describe simple concepts too often. an example would be in the Oratio in Catilinam Prima in Senatu Habita section, the sentence is as follows

He replied to it by asking people not to trust Cicero because he is Homo Novus and to trust Catiline because of the history of his family.

My recommendation would to be reorder such statements, my example would be as follows:

Catiline's response was to ask the senate to believe him due to the history of his family. He argued Cicero was not to be trusted because he was Homo Novus.

The order of subsections seems to work well chronologically, but I think a section about the impact of the oration and what resulted from it, both at the time of oration, and as a modern insight with historical significance. Discusandhammer (talk) 03:46, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

filler
I wonder whether it's worth mentioning that Quousque tam abutere… has been used as sample text? I've seen it often in typeface samples; indeed more often, in that context, than Lorem ipsum (incidentally also taken from Cicero). —Tamfang (talk) 20:53, 2 April 2023 (UTC)