[
2]
At this time Lucius Catiline
1 was a person of importance, of great celebrity, and
high birth, but a madman. It was believed that he had killed his own son
because of his own love for Aurelia Orestilla, who was not willing to marry
a man who had a son. He had been a friend and zealous partisan of Sulla. He
had reduced himself to
CICERO
In the Museum at Madrid (Bernoulli)
facts were not yet publicly known, was nevertheless fearful
lest suspicion should increase with time. Trusting to
rapidity of movement he forwarded money to Fæsulæ and
directed his fellow-conspirators to kill Cicero and set the city on fire at
a number of different places the same night. Then he departed to join Gaius
Manlius, intending to collect additional forces and invade the city while
burning. So extremely vain was he that he had the rods and axes borne before
him as though he were a proconsul, and he proceeded on his journey to
Manlius, enlisting soldiers as he went. Lentulus and his fellow-conspirators
decided that when they should learn that Catiline had arrived at
Fæsulæ, Lentulus and Cethegus should present themselves
at Cicero's door early in the morning with concealed daggers, expecting to
be admitted because of their rank; enter into conversation with him in the
vestibule on some subject, no matter what; draw him away from his own
people, and kill him; that Lucius Bestia, the tribune, should at once call
an assembly of the people by heralds and accuse Cicero of timidity and of
stirring up war and disturbing the city without cause, and that on the night
following Bestia's speech the city should be set on fire by others in twelve
places and plundered, and the leading citizens killed.
