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But the liberty of your discussions is enchained; a military force surrounds the assembly! Where are the enemies of the nation? Is Catiline at our gates? I demand, investing yourselves with your dignity, with your legislative power, you inclose yourselves within the religion of your oath. It does not permit you to separate till you have formed a constitution."
For having, before matters came to an issue, made away with his brother, he besought Sylla to place him in the list of proscription, as though he had been alive, which was done; and Catiline, to return the kind office, assassinated a certain Marcus Marius, one of the adverse party, and brought the head to Sylla, as he was sitting in the forum, and then going to the holy water of Apollo, which was nigh, washed his hands.
But a rumor of some impending danger got about; on the appointed day the new consuls appeared with a sufficient escort, and the conspirators agreed to postpone the execution of their scheme till an early day in February. This time the secret was better kept, but the impatience of Catiline hindered the plot from being carried out.
The orations which have come to us in three sets, some of them published only but never spoken those against Verres, against Catiline, and the Philippics against Antony were all of this nature, though the first concerned the conduct of a criminal charge against one individual.
"Do you think purity could long exist in the same house with Catiline and Orestilla? Paullus Arvina, the scenes I have beheld, the orgies I have shared, the atmosphere of voluptuous sin I have breathed, almost from my cradle, had changed the cold heart of the virgin huntress into the fiery pulses of the wanton Venus!
He was a Catiline, an aristocratic demagogue, revolutionary in his spirit and aims; so that he was mistrusted, feared, and detested by the ruling powers, and by the aristocracy generally, while he was admired and flattered by the people, who were tolerant of his vices and imperious temper.
The freedman needed no more exhortation, but poured out a flood of eager, anxious narrative, as had been preconcerted between himself and Catiline, speaking with so much vehemence, and displaying so much agitation in all his air and gestures, that he entirely imposed his story upon Lentulus; and that Catiline had much difficulty in restraining a smile at the skill of the Greek.
"Prefers entertaining our Cethegus, alone in her own house, I fancy," interrupted Fulvia. "Exactly so," replied Catiline, with a smile of meaning. "Happy Cethegus," said Arvina. "Do you think her so handsome?" asked Fulvia, favoring him with one of her most melting glances. "The handsomest woman," he replied, "with but one exception, I ever had the luck to look upon."
A Verres could get himself made Prætor; a Lepidus some years since could receive the Consulship; or now an Antony, or almost a Catiline. The candidate would borrow money on the security of his own audacity, and would thus succeed perhaps with some minor gifts of eloquence, if he could achieve them.
Vice and immorality were rampant, and among the vicious and debased none had fallen lower than Lucius Sergius Catiline, a ferocious man of powerful body and strong mind, who first appears as a partisan of Sulla and an active agent in his proscription.
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