So Cicero, in the first effusion of self-admiration with which he never ceased to regard his conduct on this occasion. No doubt he had acted bravely, and he had shown as much adroitness as courage. But the whole truth was never told. The Senate's anxiety to execute the prisoners arose from a fear that the people would be against them if an appeal to the assembly was allowed. The Senate was contending for the privilege of suspending the laws by its own independent will; and the privilege, if it was ever constitutional, had become so odious by the abuse of it, that to a large section of Roman citizens a conspiracy against the oligarchy had ceased to be looked on as treason at all. Cicero and Cato had their way. Lentulus, Cethegus, Autronius and their companions were strangled in their cells, on the afternoon of the debate upon their fate. A few weeks later Catiline's army was cut to pieces, and he himself was killed. So desperately his haggard bands had fought that they fell in their ranks where they stood, and never Roman commander gained a victory that cost him more dear. So furious a resistance implied a motive and a purpose beyond any which Cicero or Sallust records, and the commission of inquiry suggested by Tiberius Nero in the Senate might have led to curious revelations. The Senate perhaps had its own reasons for fearing such revelations, and for wishing the voices closed which could have made them. [1] "Nunc quis patrem decem annorum natus non modo aufert sed tollit nisi veneno?"--_Varronis Fragmenta_, ed. Alexander Riese, p. 216. [2] See the story in Cicero, _Pro Cluentio_. [3] _Pro P. Sullâ_, 4. [4] "Catilina, si judicatum erit, meridie non lucere, certus erit competitor."--_Epist. ad Atticum_, i. 1. [5] "Hoc tempore Catilinam, competitorem nostrum, defendere cogitamus. Judices habemus, quos volumus, summa accusatoris voluntate. Spero, si absolutus erit, conjunctiorem illum nobis fore in ratione petitionis."--_Ib_., i. 2. [6] "Scito nihil tam exercitum nunc esse Romae quam candidatos omnibus iniquitatibus."--_Ib_., i. 11. [7] I use a word apparently modern, but Cicero himself gave the name of Conservatores Reipublicae to the party to which he belonged. [8] Suetonius, speaking of Augustus, says: "Quoties adesset, nihil praeterea agebat, seu vitandi rumoris causâ, quo patrem Caesarem vulgo reprehensum commemorabat, quod inter spectandum epistolis libellisque legendis aut rescribendis vacaret; seu studio spectandi et voluptate," etc.--_Vita Octavii_, 45.