But Sittius was sent by him into further Spain; in order to excite sedition in that province.
 In the first place, O judges, Sittius departed, in the consulship of Lucius Julius and Caius
 Figulus, some time before this mad business of Catiline's, and before there was any suspicion of
 this conspiracy. In the second place, he did not go there for the first time, but he had already
 been there several years before, for the same purpose that he went now. And he went not only
 with an object but with a necessary object having some important accounts to settle with the
 king of Mauritania. But then, after he was gone, as Sulla managed his affairs as his agent he
 sold many of the most beautiful farms of Publius Sittius, and by this means paid his debts; so
 that the motive which drove the rest to this wickedness, the desire, namely, of retaining their
 possessions, did not exist in the case of Sittius, who had diminished his landed property to pay
 his debts. But now, how incredible, how absurd is the idea
 that a man who wished to make a massacre at Rome, and to burn down this city, should let his
 most intimate friend depart, should send him away into the most distant countries! Did he so in
 order the more easily to effect what he was endeavoring to do at Rome, if there were seditions
 in Spain?—“But these things were done independently, and had no connection with one another.” Is
 it possible, then, that he should have thought it desirable, when engaged in such important
 affairs, in such novel and dangerous, and seditious designs, to send away a man thoroughly
 attached to himself, his most intimate friend, one connected with himself by reciprocal good
 offices and by constant intercourse? It is not probable that he should send a way, when in
 difficulty, and in the midst of troubles of his own raising, the man whom he had always kept
 with him in times of prosperity and tranquillity. 
 But is Sittius himself (for I must not desert the cause of my old friend and host) a man of
 such a character, or of such a family and such a school as to allow us to believe that he wished
 to make war on the republic? Can we believe that he, whose father when all our other neighbours
 and borderers revolted from us behaved with singular duty and loyalty to our republic, should
 think it possible himself to undertake a nefarious war against his country? A man whose debts we
 see were contracted not out of luxury but from a desire to increase his property which led him
 to involve himself in business and who, though he owed debts at Rome, had very large debts owing
 to him in the provinces and in the confederate kingdoms and when he was applying for them he
 would not allow his agents to be put in any difficulty by his absence but preferred having all
 his property sold and being stripped himself of a most beautiful patrimony, to allowing any
 delay to take place in satisfying his creditors. 
 And of men of that sort I never, O judges, had
 any fear when I was in the middle of that tempest which afflicted the republic. The sort of men
 who were formidable and terrible were those who clung to their property with such affection that
 you would say it was easier to tear their limbs from them than their lands but Sittius never
 thought that there was such a relationship between him and his estates, and therefore he cleared
 himself, not only from all suspicion of such wickedness as theirs, but even from being talked
 about not by arms, but at the expense of his patrimony. 
 But now, as to what he adds, that the inhabitants of Pompeii were excited by Sulla to join
 that conspiracy and that abominable wickedness, what sort of statement that I am quite unable to
 understand. Do the people of Pompeii appear to have joined the conspiracy? Who has ever said so?
 or when was there the slightest suspicion of this fact? “He separated then,” says he, “from the
 settlers, in order that when he had excited dissensions and divisions within, he might be able
 to have the town and nation of Pompeii in his power.” In the first place, every circumstance of
 the dissension between the natives of Pompeii and the settlers was referred to the patrons of
 the town, being a matter of long standing, and having been going on many years. In the second
 place, the matter was investigated by the patrons in such a way, that Sulla did not in any
 particular disagree with the opinions of the others. And lastly, the settlers themselves
 understand that the natives of Pompeii were not more denuded by Sulla than they themselves were.