Jonson drew on the works of historians like Plutarch, Dio Cassius and Marcus Tullius Cicero to write the play, which recounts the story of Lucius Sergius Catilina, the Roman politician and conspirator of the 1st century B.C. It was written in the tradition of a Senecan closet drama, relying more on language than on action or violence, which made it less popular than Jonson's satirical and comical works.
