Depending on such accomplices and adherents, and knowing that the load of debt was everywhere great, and that the veterans of Sulla,[60] having spent their money too liberally, and remembering their spoils and former victory, were longing for a civil war, Catiline formed the design of overthrowing the government. There was no army in Italy; Pompey was fighting in a distant part of the world;[61] he himself had great hopes of obtaining the consulship; the Senate was wholly off its guard; everything was quiet and tranquil, and all these circumstances were exceedingly favorable for Catiline.... II THE FATE OF THE CONSPIRATORS[62] When the Senate, as I have stated, had gone over to the opinion of Cato, the Consul, thinking it best not to wait till night, which was coming on, lest any new attempts should be made during the interval, ordered the triumvirs to make such preparations as the execution of the conspirators required. He himself, having posted the necessary guards, conducted Lentulus[63] to the prison; and the same office was performed for the rest by the praetors. There is a place in the prison, which is called the Tullian dungeon,[64] and which, after a slight ascent to the left, is sunk about twelve feet under ground. Walls secure it on every side, and over it is a vaulted roof connected with stone arches; but its appearance is disgusting and horrible, by reason of the filth, darkness, and stench. When Lentulus had been let down into this place, certain men, to whom orders had been given, strangled him with a cord. Thus this patrician who was of the illustrious family of the Cornelii, and who had filled the office of Consul at Rome, met with an end suited to his character and conduct. On Cethegus, Statilius, Gabinius, and Coeparius, punishment was inflicted in a similar manner. During these proceedings at Rome, Catiline, out of the entire force which he himself had brought with him, and that which Manlius had previously collected, formed two legions, filling up the cohorts as far as his numbers would allow; and afterward, as any volunteers, or recruits from his confederates, arrived in his camp, he distributed them equally throughout the cohorts, and thus filled up his legions, in a short time, with their regular number of men, tho at first he had not had more than two thousand. But, of his whole army, only about a fourth part had the proper weapons of soldiers; the rest, as chance had equipped them, carried darts, spears, or sharpened stakes.