Cicero. Part 2/4: His Finest Hour

Catilina's supporters then started gathering an army in Etruria under Gaius Manlius. At a midnight meeting at Cicero's house, Crassus brought some anonymous letters he had received warning him and others to get out of Rome to avoid a forthcoming massacre. Cicero called a dawn meeting of the Senate where he ordered the addressees of the letters to read out the contents. The same meeting also heard reports of the rising in Etruria under Gaius Manlius and in other parts of Italy. Forces were dispatched to take care of the uprisings, but so far there was no evidence to link Catilina with them. The Senate passed a decree ordering the consuls to see that the state came to no harm (the senatusconsultum ultimum - basically the declaration of a state of emergency).

Cicero's colleague, Antonius, was sent to oversee operations outside Rome, while Cicero remained stationed inside the city. There was, in fact, an assassination attempt against Cicero by two of Catilina's followers, but Cicero was warned by Fulvia, the mistress of Quintus Curius, one of Catilina's followers who was a double agent working for Cicero. When the would-be assassins came to Cicero's house under the pretext of making an early morning call they found the house barred against them.

Cicero called a meeting of the Senate, and delivered the first of his speeches against Catilina. None of the Senators would sit anywhere near Catilina, who decided to join Manlius in Etruria. He left Cornelius Lentulus, one of the praetors, in charge of his supporters in Rome. Lentulus had plans to kill the Senate and set fire to Rome during the Saturnalia festival in December, and then take over the city during the ensuing chaos. He approached the ambassadors from the Allobroges, a Gaulish tribe, to ask them to help by starting a revolt in Transalpine Gaul. The Allobroges informed their patron in Rome, Quintus Fabius Sanga, who passed on the information to Cicero. On Cicero's orders, the Allobroges pretended to fall in with the plot and asked for more information. They were being taken to Catilina's camp by Titus Volturcius with letters of introduction, but instead they lead Titus Volturcius into a trap. Lentulus and other leaders of the conspirators, Gaius Cornelius Cethegus, Statilius, and Gabinius, were arrested and a meeting of the senate ordered that they be placed under house arrest in the houses of other

Go To Page: 1 2 3