[-42-] Such was the career of Catiline and his downfall which, owing to the reputation of Cicero and the speeches delivered against him, brought him a greater name than his deeds deserved. Cicero came near being tried immediately for the killing of Lentulus and the other prisoners. This complaint, though technically brought against him, was really directed against the senate. For among the populace its members were subject to denunciations of the utmost virulence voiced by Metellus Nepos, to the effect that they had no right to condemn any citizen to death without the consent of the people. But Cicero had no trouble at that time. The senate had granted immunity to all those who administered affairs during that period and had further proclaimed that if any one should dare to call any one of them to account again, he should be in the category of a personal and public enemy; so that Nepos was afraid and aroused no further tumult. [-43-] This was not the senate's only victory. Nepos had moved that Pompey be summoned with his army (he was still in Asia), pretendedly for the purpose of bringing calm to the existing conditions, but really in hope that he himself might through him get power in the disturbances he was causing, because Pompey favored the multitude: this plan the senators prevented from being ratified. For, to begin with, Cato and Quintus Minucius in their capacity as tribunes vetoed the proposition and stopped the clerk who was reading the motion. Nepos took the document to read it himself, but they snatched it away, and when even so he undertook to make some oral remarks they laid hold of his mouth. The result was that a battle with sticks and stones and even swords took place between them, in which some others joined who assisted both sides. Therefore the senators convened in session that very day, changed their togas and gave the consuls charge of the city, "that it suffer no injury." Then even Nepos was afraid and retired immediately from their midst: subsequently, after publishing some piece of writing against the senate, he set out to join Pompey, although he had no right to be absent from the city a single night.