tudies I have
selected the conspiracy of Catiline.

Lucius Catilina [commonly called Catiline] was of high birth, richly
endowed both in mind and body, but of extreme depravity; with
extraordinary powers of endurance, reckless, crafty, and versatile, a
master in the arts of deception, at once grasping and lavish, unbridled
in his passions, ready of speech, but with little true insight Of
insatiable and inordinate ambitions, he was possessed, after Sulla's
supremacy, with a craving to grasp the control of the state, utterly
careless of the means, so the end were attained. Naturally headstrong,
he was urged forward by his want of money, the consciousness of his
crimes, and the degradation of morals in a society where luxury and
greed ruled side by side.

The wildest, the most reckless, the most prodigal, the most criminal,
were readily drawn into the circle of Catiline's associates; in such a
circle those who were not already utterly depraved very soon became so
under the sinister and seductive influence of their leader. This man,
who in the pursuit of his own vices had done his own son to death, did
not hesitate to encourage his pupils in every species of crime; and with
such allies, and the aid of the disbanded Sullan soldiery swarming in
Italy, he dreamed of subverting the Roman state while her armies, under
Gnaeus Pompeius, were far away.

The first step was to secure his own election as consul. One plot of his
had already failed, because Catiline himself had attempted to move
prematurely; but the conspirators remained scatheless. Those who were
now with Catiline included members of the oldest families and of
equestrian rank. Crassus himself was suspected of complicity, owing to
his rivalry with Pompeius. The assembled conspirators were addressed by
Catiline in a speech of the most virulent character. He urged these
social outcasts to rise against a bloated plutocracy battening on the
ill-gotten wealth to which his audience had just as good a title. He
promised the cancellation of all debts, the proscription of the wealthy,
and the general application of the rule of "the spoils to the victors."
He had friends at the head of the armies in Spain and Mauritania, if
Gaius Antonius were the other successful candidate for the consulship,
his co-operation, too, could be secured. Such was the purport of his
speech; but I do not credit the popular fiction that the conspirators
were solemnly pledged in a bowl of mingled wine