I wanted to write this some three years ago but was reminded of this only recently in a pinned discussion with a comment lamenting the poor state of history YouTube. (It is poor indeed.) The time elapsed between planning and execution, fortunately, was shorter than it took for Cicero to get to the verb in a few instances.

The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkZx0q_3rYI. This post is naturally a bit of a nitpick, but that is in part what we're here for. I'll now abbreviate "Historia Civilis" to "H" as if I'm writing a review in the JRS or something.

0:06 et seq. H seems to conceive of Roman politics in an outmoded Mommsenian populares–optimates dichotomy. The scholarship has moved beyond this. See M A Robb Beyond populares and optimates (2010); H Mouritsen Politics in the Roman republic (2017); Gruen Last generation of the Roman republic (1995) pp 50, 499 et seq. The argument is highly developed there, but I want to focus on just a few things: "reformers" includes Crassus – the guy who lets peoples' houses burn down, stole tons of money during the proscriptions, and drives people into debt – and Catiline, both of whom were early Sullan collaborators, around whom H believes were the core of the "conservatives". H ignores the prosecution of Catilina ("leader of the 'reformers'") right before the elections, in which a whole pile of "conservative" consuls showed up to defend him. And "reformers" also apparently has to include Cicero, since Cicero noted that he was hoping to cooperate with Catiline on a joint consular ticket. Cic. Att. 1.2.1. This is the dichotomy that "obscure[s] rather than enlighten[s]". Gruen LGRR p 50.

H says the conservatives backed Cicero because the others were complicit in the Sullan proscriptions. This is in part true: Cic. Tog. Cand. fr. 9–10P criticises Catiline for murdering Marcus Marius Gratidianus years earlier. That said, the murder claim here is probably not true – Berry Catilinarians pp 12–13; Marshall, CQ 35 (1985) pp 124–33 – and more invective than factual. This, speech, moreover was not given because Cicero started with attack adverts. It was given because Catiline and Antonius had formed an alliance and were bribing everyone (bankrolled possibly by Crassus and Caesar); only after a senatorial decree demanding stronger legislation against bribery was vetoed and amid popular anger did Cicero speak against his opponents. Cicero's strategy was opportunistic.

c. 2:30. Antonius' position is also misunderstood. Antonius was the son of M Antonius (cos 99) who was a famous orator. That reputation helped him secure the second place. Moreover, Cicero and Antonius had been political friends before the election and Cicero supported Antonius' bid for a praetorship in 66 (Cicero was in the same praetorian election and, as he will never stop telling us, was elected first).

2:55. It was also Antonius' debts which triggered him to take the deal for Macedonia, contra Cicero just being super clever and nobody ever thinking of this. Macedonia is simply the better province if you want to make money. Cicero was largely uninterested in leading troops or leaving Rome's politics (this is actually a matter of some research: "Why did so many late republicans stop wanting to take commands?") and received in exchange Antonius' Cisalpine Gaul, which Cicero then rejected.

3:25. Land reform. H paints Cicero's rhetoric about pl tr Rullus' land bill as old fears about the "ten kings". This is a mischaracterisation. Cicero's position is more nuanced. He first paints himself as pro-Gracchan and the real popularis. Cic. Leg. agr. 2.10, 2.7. He argues a number of things: urbanites are bad at farming and living in the cities is better when the land being allotted are uninhabitable swamps (2.71), how they would give up their voting rights – by distance rather than law – in Rome (id), and the discussion of the "ten kings" is in terms of the people preserving their liberty from arbitrary judicial decisions ... to oppose an electoral system that has a minority of the tribes elect the decemvirate ... and to stop Rullus from handing the presidency of the decemvirate's election to himself (2.17–29).

Whether land reform is destabilising or not is an interesting question. Post-Social war, I think not. Cf Mouritsen Italian unification (1997) on why. Land reform was done and was successful from 133 onwards (Ti Gracchus' bill) and was able to distribute huge amounts of land such that almost all of Roman Italy was in private hands by 111. See Roselaar Public land (2010). The lands that remained were non-Roman or otherwise of very poor quality (as was well known at the time; Cic. Leg. agr. 2.71).

H thinks that senatorial disapproval kills bills (H near 4:25). It doesn't. Rullus' bill was vetoed by a tribunician colleague. But for that Rullus could have just bypassed the senate and brought the legislation before the assembly, as many radical magistrates had done in the past. Eg Sulpicius, Gaius Gracchus, and later Caesar. This is especially funny because H made a video on Caesar before Cicero and H notes Caesar's bypassing of the senate.

4:53. Rabirius' trial. This is no "really stupid case". H seemingly doesn't understand the controversy about the SCU and the remaining bitterness about the murder of Lucius Appuleius Saturninus by a mob in 100 BC, which is what Rabirius was being prosecuted for. "The guy was innocent and everybody knew it": he was definitely not innocent inasmuch as he was part of Marius' army during the crisis in 100. (In my opinion though this SCU is the most valid SCU ever.)

This requires explaining the SCU also: the SCU was not an exemption from the law. It was a statement from the senate saying that anything illegal you did to save the republic was okay. That the validity of the SCU's exemption was always up for debate was a vital element of it because the only way out was to convince the court that the senate's opinion outweighed any need to follow the law. The SCU gave moral cover for Rabirius, then a young man, to violate the law and participate in the unlawful killing of Saturninus; none were penalised, however, because the community felt the national interest warranted it. The SCU is a signal of that feeling. See generally Golden Crisis management (2013).

Also, H doesn't illustrate that this was a comitial trial and not one before the quaestiones perpetuae (a permanent jury court; linking Wikipedia... I wrote the article on it anyway). He uses the same graphic with a small jury pool for both. Rabirius was prosecuted by Caesar before the comitia centuriata. And it was specifically for that reason that the ploy with the Janiculum's flag – signalling the city was under attack – worked to dissolve the comitia. Millar Crowd in Rome (1997) p 107.

Also a nitpick: there were actually two trials. Scholars differ as to whether the plot with the flag (signalling a fictitious enemy raid) applied to the first trial or the second. The first was before the centuries for treason by Caesar; the second was before the tribes by Labienus for other charges. This whole thing is very muddled. See Alexander Trials (1990) p 110.

5:25. Elections. First, the timeline is broken here: H presents Catiline evil, election results, Murena's trial, the lex Tullia (against corruption), and Catiline revealed. In actuality, it was lex Tullia, election results, Catiline evil, Catiline's revealed, Murena's trial. This ordering is important. Why will come up shortly.

Anyway, H repeats Cicero's claim that Catiline wanted to assassinate people during the elections. This isn't true. First, killing the consul means there are no elections because there is no renuntiatio and there are no results; under augural law, every consul "creates" his successors; Cicero also can dissolve the comitia at any time. Sulla used this fact to force his successors to swear to uphold his laws during the elections of 88 BC. Second, the purpose of the cuirass was to signal Cicero's disagreement with the senate – which when he warned of Catiline's previous inflammatory rhetoric did nothing – and to sway voters as to his perception of danger. The result of actually pulling off a murder during elections was... getting murdered... as was in the case in 100 BC: the SCU and the murder for which Rabirius was being prosecuted emerged from the same facts.

6:18. Murena's trial. Now let's talk about the lex Tullia. The law was passed before the elections because there was in fact a lot of bribery going on and people wanted to stop it. The senate recommended its passage and it was carried before the elections at the (public) request of all the candidates. Importantly, Murena had a proven military record. H: "This [trial with conviction] had the potential of being really destabilising". That's true. But it is not true for the reasons H gives.

H says that the problem was that all election results would be thrown out for bribery. This was actually the status quo. Just a few years earlier in the consular elections for 65 BC, the results for both consuls were thrown out due to bribery convictions. Attempts to prosecute for ambitus were common through the late republic because they triggered new elections in which the original losers could win.

Timing and the real motivation are here important. Reveal of Catiline's conspiracy, both the rebellion of Manlius in Etruria and Catiline's flight from the city, occurred before Murena's trial. The reveal of the conspiracy undermined Murena's prosecution since winning a conviction now appeared against the national interest: it would deprive Rome of a competent military leader and throw the opening of the year into chaos by forcing a by-election. The necessity of Murena, personally as consul, for the national defence was Cicero's argument. Cic. Mur. 4; Flac. 98 (the jury voted on those grounds). (Hortensius, a "conservative", and Crassus, a "reformer", also were defending Murena from Cato, a "conservative".) And as to the jokes, yes, Cicero made some jokes at Cato's expense: Cato apparently responded "Gentlemen, what an amusing consul we have!". Plut. Cat. min. 21.5.

7:32. Lex Tullia. The inversion of the timeline makes a mockery of the trial. Why? Because Murena was prosecuted under the law that H says was passed after his own trial. Now, he says it is October. The Catilinarian conspiracy, which in reality has been going on for over a month by Murena's trial, is finally starting for H.

8:14. Crassus' letter and Catiline's house arrest. H says Catiline was placed under house arrest by Cicero. This did not happen. Catiline tried to place himself under house arrest but none would take him and he remained a free man. Moreover, the letter which H describes did not have Catiline's name on it at all; after the letter was shown to Cicero, Catiline stayed in the city after he was brought up on suspicion of being behind it, specifically under a lex de vi by Lucius Aemilius Paullus (later cos 50).

8:20. SCU. I've explained the SCU earlier. H says it was done "as a precaution". This was not the case. Immediately after the SCU was passed, praetors were sent about Italy to levy troops to crush the rebels. Proconsuls awaiting votes on triumphs were redeployed into Italy; Quintus Marcius Rex is sent after Manlius. After Catiline's involvement becomes clear and he flees the city, Antonius – the consul – is sent after him with an army.

9:00. First Catilinarian. It is very strange that H calls this "not Cicero's finest moment" because this is the most famous oration in Latin. The issue here is that H does not understand Cicero's argument.

Cicero is arguing that Catiline needs to go into voluntary exile for the public good (not that the senate send him into exile). He also already knows that Catiline is going to leave the city forthwith to join the army in Etruria. Cicero does not want to force Catiline into exile even though he can as consul do so (this is called relegatio) because it makes Cicero look tyrannical. Cicero refuses to put it to a vote for this reason. Cicero, as part of his argument, says that the lack of opposition from the senate for this proposal is indicative of the senate's support. To show this, Cicero brings up two junior senators as a hypothetical and he says the senate would vociferously oppose sending them into exile; it is the difference in reaction which shows how the senate is against Catiline.

H misinterprets this as Cicero actually wanting the senate to send Catiline into exile. He thinks the hypothetical that Cicero gives (H at 9:16) is an actual proposal and that this is a strange logical gimmick. It is not.

9:42. "The situation was now on the precipice of civil war". The senate is already levying troops. It has already appointed Antonius as consul to put the rebellion down. It has sent various proconsuls waiting near Rome with troops to garrison towns in Italy to make sure no further rebels emerge. Catiline is sent into exile after conviction for vis (public violence). There is no turning back. We are over the precipice of civil war.

9:45. Gallic spies. H does not understand how the Gallic trap worked. The Gauls did not assemble the urban conspirators for a meeting and get them ambushed, as H describes. The Gauls desired from the urban conspirators seals to show their good faith as a guarantee. The Gauls were then theatrically "intercepted" by one of the praetors. Their sealed letters were searched and Cicero ordered the people who signed arrested.

What H misses in his narrative is the theatricality of this display. Cicero is trying to set up a plausible narrative to be able to say "See! See! Catiline is CONSPIRING with our oldest and most deeply feared barbarian enemies, the Gauls!". This does not happen if the Gauls just directly lead the Romans to the conspirators; in H's narrative, the Gauls are Roman allies, which Cicero does not want.

10:30. The road to vixerunt. H entirely misses the abortive attempt to free the prisoners. That attempt is why the senate meeting over their fate was immediately scheduled. At 11:02, H characterises Caesar as saying the killings would be a dangerous precedent. The precedent was already set in 121, 100, and 77 BC (arguably also 133). There is also disagreement as to what Caesar was actually proposing.

H characterises Caesar as against authoritarianism. Yet, both life imprisonment and execution were unlawful deprivations of citizen rights; they would both be done without trial. Caesar's exact proposal is unclear: some say he said life without parole and seizure of their property (Sall. Cat. 51–52; Cic. Cat. 4.7–8) while others (Plut. Cic. 21) say custody then trials when Catiline is defeated. The Sallustian and Ciceronean narrative says the former – it is probably what Caesar actually argued as both are closer to the events and unanimous – but it only really makes logical sense if Caesar argues what is in Plutarch. See Berry, Catilinarians, p 166 n 8, for discussion.

At 12:05, H depicts Caesar going into a frenzy when his proposal fails. This is not in Sallust. This is not in Plutarch's life of Cicero or Caesar or Cato the Younger. This is not in Dio. It is not in Appian's Civil wars. Suet. Caes. 14.2 says Caesar left the senate house when Cicero's equestrian bodyguards intimidated him but this is not H's frenzy. It is discussed in none of the secondary sources I have read on it. If I'm just blind and can't find it, tell me.

Late quibbles. At 13:42, H inverts the time of Cicero's leaving the consulship and Catiline's defeat at Pistoria. Catiline meets his end around 3 January when Antonius, now proconsul, has his army engage Catiline's. Sumner, CPh 58 (1963) pp 215 et seq. H also fails to mention Cicero's unpopularity: his outgoing speech, where he would swear that he upheld the laws during his consulship, was vetoed by one of the plebeian tribunes (Metellus Nepos).

Most of my sources are in-line. I use Oxford Classical Dictionary abbreviations.

I also generally rely on the following sources, not explicitly referenced, * D H Berry's Cicero: Defence speeches (2000, reprinted with corrections 2008) and the introductory portion on Pro Murena pp 59 et seq * Broughton MRR 2.

I am unable to find any description of H's "Caesar frenzy" in the Catilinarian debate in Morstein-Marx Julius Caesar (2021), Berry Catilinarians, Drogula Cato (2019), Golden Crisis management (2013), Gruen LGRR (1995), or Wiseman CAH² 9 (1994).

I also will admit that my position on optimates and populares is very much against them. Some people think they exist. But they do not think they exist in terms of political parties. The closest you get is a general ideological predilection. See Mackie, RMfP 135 (1992) pp 49 et seq.

Edit. I've made a few grammatical and minor content corrections as I've noticed them. Where I don't explicitly comment on H's video, I have little comment. I've edited a portion on the messiness of reconstructing Rabirius' trial.

Corrected typographical error (64 BC should have been 65).