 Ibsen was not the first playwright to dramatize the story of Catiline.Ben Jonson wrote a tragedy on the subject, called "Catiline, His Conspiracy", in 1611.Asked later what he had read when he wrote Catiline, Ibsen replied that he had read only the Danish Norse saga-inspired Romantic tragedian Adam Oehlenschläger and Ludvig Holberg, "the Scandinavian Molière".