Manlius had been a centurion in Sulla's army, and had received an allotment of confiscated land in Etruria; but, like others, had failed to prosper. The movement was one born of discontent with embarrassments which were mostly brought about by extravagance or incompetence. But the rapidity with which Manlius was able to gather a formidable force round him seems to shew that there were genuine grievances also affecting the agricultural classes in Etruria generally. At any rate there was now no doubt that a formidable disturbance was brewing; the senate voted that there was a _tumultus_, authorized the raising of troops, and named commanders in the several districts affected. It was complicity in this rising that Cicero now sought to establish against Catiline and his partisans in Rome. The report of the meeting in the house of Læca gave him the pretext for his first step--a fiery denunciation of Catiline in the senate on the 7th of November. Catiline left Rome, joined the camp of Manlius, and assumed the ensigns of _imperium_. That he was allowed thus to leave the city is a proof that Cicero had as yet no information enabling him to act at once. It was the right of every citizen to avoid standing a trial by going into exile. Catiline was now under notice of prosecution for _vis_, and when leaving Rome he professed to be going to Marseilles, which had the _ius exilii_. But when it was known that he had stopped short at Fæsulæ, the senate at once declared both him and Manlius _hostes_, and authorized the consuls to proceed against them. The expedition was intrusted to Antonius, in spite of his known sympathy with Catiline, while Cicero was retained with special powers to protect the city. The result is too well known to be more than glanced at here. Catiline's partisans were detected by letters confided to certain envoys of the Allobroges, which were held to convict them of the guilt of treason, as instigating Catiline to march on Rome, and the senate of the Allobroges to assist the invasion by sending cavalry to Fæsulæ. [Sidenote: Execution of the conspirators, December, B.C. 63. Its legal grounds and consequences.]