The Conspiracy of Catiline

A few days later, the senator Lucius Saenius read aloud in the Senate a letter which he said had been brought to him from Faesulae, in which it was written that Gaius Manlius had taken up arms with a large multitude before the sixth day before the Kalends of November. At the same time, as is usual in such circumstances, some reported portents and prodigies, others that assemblies were being held, arms being carried, and a slave war was being stirred up at Capua and in Apulia. Therefore, by a decree of the Senate, Quintus Marcius Rex was sent to Faesulae, and Quintus Metellus Creticus to Apulia and those surrounding places — both of these were commanders near the city, prevented from celebrating a triumph by the chicanery of a few, who were accustomed to sell everything honorable and dishonorable —, but the praetors, Quintus Pompeius Rufus to Capua, and Quintus Metellus Celer to the Picene district, and they were permitted to raise an army according to the time and danger. In addition to this, if anyone should give information concerning the conspiracy which had been made against the republic, they decreed as a reward for a slave, freedom and a hundred thousand sesterces, and for a free man, impunity for that matter and two hundred thousand sesterces, and likewise they decreed that gladiatorial families should be distributed to Capua and to the other municipia according to the resources of each, and that at Rome, throughout the whole city, watches should be held and that minor magistrates should be in charge of them.

By these things the state was deeply moved and the face of the city was changed. From the greatest joy and wantonness, which a long peace had produced, suddenly sadness invaded everyone: they hurried, they trembled, they did not sufficiently trust any place or any person, they neither waged war nor kept peace, and each measured dangers by his own fear. In addition to this, the women, in whom a fear of war, unfamiliar due to the magnitude of the republic, had entered, lamented themselves, stretched suppliant hands to heaven, pitied their small children, asked about everything, dreaded every rumor, and abandoning pride and luxury, seized upon everything, distrusting themselves and their country. But the cruel mind of Catiline was still pursuing those same plans, although defenses were being prepared and he himself had been indicted under the Lex Plautia by Lucius Paulus. Finally, for the purpose of dissembling or of clearing himself, as if he had been provoked by a dispute, he came into the Senate. Then the consul Marcus Tullius, either fearing his presence or moved by anger, delivered an eloquent speech useful to the republic, which he afterwards published in writing. But when he sat down, Catiline, as he was prepared to dissemble everything, with downcast look and suppliant voice began to entreat the fathers not to believe anything about him rashly; saying that he was sprung from such a family and had so regulated his life from youth that he had all good things in prospect; they should not think that he, a patrician man, whose own and whose ancestors’ very many services to the Roman plebs existed, had need of the ruin of the republic, while Marcus Tullius, a lodger citizen of the city of Rome, was saving it. When he added other insults to this, everyone clamored against him, calling him an enemy and a parricide. Then he, furious, said: “Since indeed, surrounded by enemies, I am driven headlong, I will extinguish my fire by ruin.” Then he rushed from the senate-house to his home. There, revolving many things in his mind, because the plots against the consul were not succeeding and he understood that the city was fortified by watches against fire, believing it best to increase his army and, before the legions were enrolled, to forestall many things which would be of use for war, he set out in the dead of night with a few to the Manlian camp. But he charged Cethegus and Lentulus, and the others whose prompt audacity he had known, to strengthen the power of the faction by whatever means they could, to hasten the plots against the consul, and to prepare slaughter, fires, and other deeds of war; saying that he would soon approach the city with a large army. While these things were being done at Rome, Gaius Manlius sent envoys from his number to Marcius Rex with instructions of this kind: