And in
 this conspiracy, what union was ever so close as that between Autronius and Catiline, between
 Autronius and Lentulus? What combination was there ever between any men for the most virtuous
 purposes, so intimate as his connection with them for deeds of wickedness, lust and
 audacity?—what crime is there which Lentulus did not plot with Autronius?—what atrocity did
 Catiline ever commit without his assistance? while, in the meantime, Sulla not only abstained
 from seeking the concealment of night and solitude in their company, but he had never the very
 slightest intercourse with them, either in conversation or in casual meetings. The Allobroges, those who gave us the truest information on the most important
 matters, accused Autronius, and so did the letters of many men, and many private witnesses. All
 that time no one ever accused Sulla; no one ever mentioned his name. Lastly, after Catiline had
 been driven out or allowed to depart out of the city, Autronius sent him arms, trumpets, bugles,
 scythes, Some commentators propose fasces instead of falces here, and it would
 certainly make much better sense. standards, legions. He who was left in the city, but
 expected out of it though checked by the punishment of Lentulus, gave way at times to feelings
 of fear, but never to any right feelings or good sense. Sulla, on the other hand, was so quiet,
 that all that time he was at Naples, where it is not supposed that there were any men who were
 implicated in or suspected of this crime; and the place itself is one not so well calculated to
 excite the feelings of men in distress, as to console them. 
 On account, therefore, of this great dissimilarity between the men and the cases, I also
 behaved in a different manner to them both. For Autronius came to me, and he was constantly
 coming to me, with many tears, as a suppliant, to beg me to defend him, and he used to remind me
 that he had been my school-fellow in my childhood, my friend in my youth, and my colleague in
 the quaestorship. He used to enumerate many services which I had done him, and some also which
 he had done me. By all which circumstances, O judges, I was so much swayed and influenced, that
 I banished from my recollection all the plots which he had laid against me myself; that I forgot
 that Caius Cornelius had been lately sent by him for the purpose of killing me in my own house,
 in the sight of my wife and children. And if he had formed these designs against me alone, such
 is my softness and lenity of disposition, that I should never have been able to resist his tears
 and entreaties;