CETHEGUS  , the name of a

Roman patrician family of the Cornelian gens . Like the younger Cato its members kept up the old Roman fashion of dispensing with the tunic and leaving the arms bare (Horace, Ars Poetica, 5o; Lucan, Pharsalia, ii . 543)• Two individuals are of some importance: (I) MARCUS CORNELIUS CETHEGUS, pontifex maximus and curule aedile, 213 B.C . In 211, as praetor, he had charge of Apulia; later, he was sent to Sicily, where he proved a successful administrator . In 209 he was censor, and in 204 consul . In 203 he was proconsul in Upper Italy, where, in conjunction with the praetor P . Quintilius Varus, he gained a hard-won victory over Mago, Hannibal's brother, in Insubrian territory, and obliged him to leave Italy . He died in 196 . He had a great reputation as an orator, and is charaaterized by Ennius as " the quintessence of persuasiveness " (suadae medulla) . Horace (Ars Poet . 5o; Epistles, ii . 2 .

117) calls him an authority on the use of Latin words .

Livy XXV . 2, 41, XXVii . II, XXiX . II, XXX . 18 . (2) GAIUS CORNELIUS CETHEGUS, the boldest and most dangerous of Catiline's associates . Like many other youthful profligates, he joined the conspiracy in the hope of getting his debts cancelled . When Catiline left Rome in 63 B.C., after Cicero's first speech, Cethegus remained behind as leader of the conspirators with P . Lentulus Sura . He himself undertook to murder Cicero and other prominent men, but was hampered by the dilatoriness of Sura, whose age and rank entitled him to the chief consideration . The discovery of arms in Cethegus's house, and of the letter which he had given to the ambassadors of the AIlobroges, who had been invited to co-operate, led to his arrest .

He was condemned to

death, and executed, with Sura and others, on the night of the 5th of December . Sallust, Catilina, 46-55; Cicero, In Cat. iii . 5-7; Appian, Bell . CZV. ii . 2-5; see CATILINE .