appointed, when the senate decreed, chiefly at the instance of Cicero,
that a banishment of ten years should be added by law to the penalties
imposed for bribery. Catiline thought, as was doubtless true, that this
ruling had been made on his account, and planned, by collecting a small
band, to slay Cicero and some other foremost men on the very day of the
election, in order that he might immediately be chosen consul. This
project he was unable, however, to carry out. Cicero learned of the plot
beforehand, informed the senate of it, and delivered a long accusation
against him. Being unsuccessful, however, in persuading them to vote any
of the measures he asked--this was because his announcement was not
regarded as credible and he was suspected of having uttered false
charges against the men on account of personal enmity--Cicero became
frightened, seeing that he had given Catiline additional provocation,
and he did not venture to enter the assembly alone, as had been his
custom, but he took his friends along prepared to defend him if any
danger threatened; and he wore for his own safety and because of their
hostility a breastplate beneath his clothing, which he would purposely
uncover. For this reason and because anyway some report had been spread
of a plot against him, the populace was furiously angry and the fellow
conspirators of Catiline through fear of him became quiet. [-30-] In
this way new consuls were chosen, and Catiline no longer directed his
plot in secret or against Cicero and his adherents only, but against the
whole commonwealth. He assembled from Rome itself the lowest characters
and such as were always eager for a revolution and as many as possible
of the allies, by promising them cancellation of debts, redistribution
of lands, and everything else by which he was most likely to allure
them. Upon the foremost and most powerful of them (of whose number was
Antonius the consul) he imposed the obligation of taking the oath in an
unholy manner. He sacrificed a boy, and after administering the oath
over his entrails, tasted the inwards in company with the rest. Those