After Cicero had received this power, he committed all affairs outside
to Quintus Metellus; but the management of the city he kept in his own
hands. Such a numerous attendance guarded him every day when he went
abroad that the greater part of the forum was filled with his train when
he entered it. Catiline, impatient of further delay, resolved himself to
break forth and go to Manlius; but he commanded Marcius and Cethegus to
take their swords and go early in the morning to Cicero's gates, as if
only intending to salute him, and then to fall upon him and slay him. A
noble lady, Fulvia, coming by night, discovered this to Cicero, bidding
him beware of Cethegus and Marcius. They came by break of day, and being
denied entrance, made an outcry and disturbance at the gates, which
excited all the more suspicion. But Cicero, going forth, summoned the
senate into the temple of Jupiter Stator, which stands at the end of the
Sacred Street, going up to the Palatine. And when Catiline with others
of his party also came, as though intending to make his defence, none of
the senators would sit by him, but all of them left the bench where he
had placed himself. And when he began to speak, they interrupted him
with outcries. At length, Cicero, standing up, commanded him to leave
the city; for, since one governed the commonwealth with words, the other
with arms, it was necessary that there should be a wall betwixt them.
Catiline, therefore, immediately left the town, with three hundred
armed men; and assuming, like a magistrate, the rods, axes, and military
ensigns, he went to Manlius, and having got together a body of near
twenty thousand men, with these he marched to the several cities,
endeavoring to persuade or force them to revolt. It being now come to
open war, Antonius was sent forth to fight him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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