Abstract

The question concerning the place of death of Lucius Sergius Catiline, the famous opponent of Marcus Tullius Cicero, has long been discussed by erudite scholars and professional historians. The only detailed description of those events by Sallust opens the door to a variety of hypotheses. It is only known for certain that the Catiline’s last battle took place in agro Pistoriensi, in the vicinity of the modern-day city of Pistoia. Ancient tradition intertwined with the political collisions of medieval Tuscany, giving rise to a deeply rooted view of the inhabitans of Pistoia as descendants of Catiline’s soldiers. The early chronicles, without putting forward any argument, placed the battle at the Piceno’s plain near the Piteccio castle. However, in the 17th century, the erudite scholar M. Salvi suggested that Catiline died on the plain of Vaioni. This point of view became widespread and turned out to be the first scientific hypothesis, since its author provided a body of evidence and initiated a debate which should also be rightfully recognized as scholarly. Salvi put forward arguments of toponymic, archaeological and logistic nature. He based his interpretation on Sallust’s account, seeking to reconcile it with the previous tradition of the chronicles and local legends about the origin of the names of settlements. As an additional argument, Salvi appealed to archaeological finds in Vaioni. Eighty years later, his hypothesis was challenged by another erudite from Pistoia, D. Cini, whose interpretation prevails to this day. Cini and later scholars refuted most of Salvi’s arguments. Nevertheless, within the framework of this polemic, the foundations of a modern approach to finding the place of Catiline’s death were laid: the combined use of various historical sources and the consideration of the topographic characteristics of the area. With the development of scientific methods, the focus of modern research has shifted to the study of the northern Tuscany road network which allowed trans-Apennine movement. This shift was partly driven by the debate between the supporters and opponents of the Vaioni plain hypothesis as the site of the last battle of Catiline. Thus, M. Salvi’s hypothesis, though now rejected, has played a certain role in the history of historical research.