Crassus accomplished his task within six months, whence arose a contention
for honors between himself and Pompey. Crassus did not dismiss his army, for
Pompey did not dismiss his. Both were candidates for the consulship. Crassus
had been praetor as the law of Sulla required. Pompey had been
neither praetor nor quaestor, and was only thirty-four
years old. He promised the tribunes of the people that much of their former
power should be restored. Y.R.
684 When they were chosen consuls they did not even B.C. 70 then dismiss their armies, which were stationed near
the city. Each one offered an excuse. Pompey said that he was waiting the
return of Metellus for his Spanish triumph. Crassus said that Pompey ought
to dismiss his army first. The people, seeing fresh seditions brewing and
fearing two armies encamped round about, besought the consuls, while they
were occupying the curule chairs in the forum, to be reconciled to each
other. At first both of them repelled these solicitations. When certain
persons, who seemed to be divinely inspired, predicted many direful
consequences if the consuls did not come to an agreement, the people again
implored them with lamentation and the greatest dejection, reminding them of
the evils produced by the contentions of Marius and Sulla. Crassus yielded
first. He came down from his chair, advanced to Pompey, and offered him his
hand in the way of reconciliation. Pompey rose and hastened to meet him.
They shook hands amid general acclamations and the people did not leave the
assembly until the consuls had given orders in writing to disband the
armies. Thus was the well-grounded fear of another great dissension happily
dispelled. This was about the sixtieth year in the course of the civil
convulsions, reckoning from the killing of Tiberius Gracchus. GAIUS MARIUS Visconti’s Rom. Icon. (Duruy) 
 BOOK II CHAPTER I The Conspiracy of Catiline — Discovered by Cicero — The Conspirators
arrested, and put to Death—Battle of Pistoria and Death of Catiline Y.R. AFTER the reign of Sulla, and the later operations of B.C. Sertorius and Perpenna in Spain,
other internal commotions of a similar nature took place among the Romans
until Gaius Caesar and Pompey the Great waged war against each
other, and Caesar made an end of Pompey and was himself killed in
the senate-chamber because he was accused of exercising royal power. How
these things came about and how both Pompey and Caesar lost their
lives, this second book of the Civil Wars will show. Pompey had Y.R. 690 lately cleared the
sea of pirates, who were then more numerous B.C. 64 than ever before,
and afterward had overthrown Mithridates, king of Pontus, and regulated his
kingdom and the other nations that he had subdued in the East.
Caesar was still a young man, but powerful in speech and action,
daring in every way, ambitious of everything, and profuse beyond his means
in the pursuit of honors. While yet aedile and praetor he
had incurred great debts and had made himself wonderfully agreeable to the
multitude, who always sing the praises of those who are lavish in
expenditures. At this time Lucius Catiline All
the codices say Gaius Catiline. The Latin version of Candidus
says Lucius. 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) 
 Y.R. 690 poverty in order to gratify his ambition, but still he was B.C. 64 courted by the powerful, both men and women, and he became a candidate for the consulship as a step leading to absolute power. He confidently expected to be elected; but the suspicion of his ulterior designs defeated him, and Cicero, the most eloquent orator and the rhetorician of the period, Y.R. 691 was chosen instead. Catiline, by way of raillery B.C. 63 and contempt for those who voted for him, called him Novus Homo (a new man) on account of his obscure birth (for so they call those who achieve distinction by their own merits and not by those of their ancestors); and because he was not born in the city he called him Inquilinus (a lodger), by which term they designate those who occupy houses belonging to others. From this time Catiline abstained wholly from politics as not leading quickly and surely to absolute power, but as full of the spirit of contention and malice. He procured much money from many women who hoped that their husbands would get killed in the uprising, and he formed a conspiracy with a number of senators and knights, and collected together a body of plebians, foreign residents, and slaves. His leading fellow-conspirators were Cornelius Lentulus and Cethegus, who were then city praetors. He sent emissaries throughout Italy to those of Sulla’s soldiers who had squandered the gains of their former life of plunder and who longed for similar doings. For this purpose he sent Gaius Manlius to Faesulae in Etruria and others to Picenum and Apulia, who enlisted soldiers for him secretly. All these facts, while they were still secret, were communicated to Cicero by Fulvia, a
woman of quality. Her lover, Quintus Curius, one of the conspirators
with Catiline, who had been expelled from the Senate for debauchery,
told his mistress in a vain and boastful way that he would soon be
in a position of great power. He began to promise her seas and mountains, says
Sallust ( Cat. 23 ). And now a
rumor of what was transpiring in Italy was noised about.
Accordingly, Cicero stationed guards at intervals throughout the
city, and sent many of the nobility to the suspected places to watch
what was going on. Catiline, although nobody had ventured to lay
hands on him, because the Y.R. 691 facts were not yet publicly known,
was nevertheless fearful B.C. 63 lest
suspicion should increase with time. Trusting to rapidity of
movement he forwarded money to Faesulae 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 Faesulae, 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. Such were the designs of Lentulus, Cethegus, Statilius, and Cassius, the
chiefs of the conspiracy, and they waited for the appointed time. Meanwhile
ambassadors of the Allobroges, who were in the city making complaint against
their magistrates, were solicited to join the conspiracy of Lentulus in
order to cause an uprising against the Romans in Gaul. Lentulus sent in
company with them, to Catiline, a man of Croton named Vulturcius, who
carried letters without signatures. The Allobroges being in doubt
communicated the matter to Fabius Sanga, the patron of their state—it was
the custom of all the subject states to have patrons at Rome. Sanga
communicated the facts to Cicero, who captured the Allobroges and Vulturcius
on their journey and brought them straightway before the Senate. Sallust says that the Allobroges
were privy to their own arrest, which took place on the Milvian bridge,
and that they made no resistance, but that Vulturcius fought till he was
overpowered. ( Cat. 45.) They confessed to their
understanding with Lentulus and testified in his presence that Cornelius
Lentulus had often said that it was written in the book of fate that three
Cornelii should be monarchs of Rome, two of whom, Cinna and Sulla, had
already been such.