myself furnish it with a head?"[177] This allusion of his was to the Senate and to the people, which made Cicero more alarmed, and putting on his armour he was conducted by all the nobles from his house and by many of the young men to the Campus Martius. And he purposely let the people have a glimpse of his armour by loosing his tunic from his shoulders, and he showed the spectators there was danger. The people were enraged and rallied round him, and at last by their votes they again rejected Catilina, and chose Silanus[178] and Murena consuls. XV. Not long after the men in Etruria came together to support Catilina, and were forming themselves into companies; and the appointed day for executing their plan was near, when there came to Cicero's house about midnight men who were among the first and most powerful in Rome, Marcus Crassus, and Marcus Marcellus,[179] and Scipio Metellus; and knocking at the door and calling the doorkeeper, they bade him rouse Cicero and tell him that they were there. And the matter was thus: after Crassus had supped, the doorkeeper gave him letters brought by some unknown man, which were addressed to different persons, and one to Crassus himself without a signature. Crassus, having read this letter only, and seeing that the letter intimated that there would be great bloodshed caused by Catilina and that it urged him to quit the city, did not open the rest, but went forthwith to Cicero in alarm at the danger, and desiring to acquit himself somewhat of the blame which he bore on account of his friendship with Catilina. Accordingly Cicero after deliberating convened the Senate at daybreak, and taking the letters gave them to the persons to whom they were directed, and bade them read the letters aloud: and all the letters alike gave notice of a conspiracy. When Quintus Arrius, a man of prætorian rank, reported the forming of armed companies in Etruria, and news arrived that Manlius with a large force was hovering about those cities expecting every moment something new from Rome, a decree of the Senate was made to put affairs in the hands of the consuls, and that the consuls on receiving this commission should administer the state as they best could, and save it. The Senate is not used to do this frequently, but only when they apprehend great danger.