and blood.

Rumours of the plot, however, began to leak out through a certain
Fulvia, mistress of Quintus Curio, a man who had been expelled from the
senatorial body on account of his iniquities; and this probably caused
many of the nobility to support, for the consulship, Cicero, whom, as a
"new man," they would otherwise have religiously opposed. The result was
that Catiline's candidature failed, and Cicero was elected with Gaius
Antonius for his colleague.

At length Cicero, seeing that the ferment was everywhere increasing to
an extent with which the ordinary law could not cope, obtained from the
senate the exceptional powers for dealing with a national emergency
which they had constitutional authority to grant. Thus, when news came
that a Catilinarian, Gaius Manlius, had risen in Etruria at the head of
an armed force, prompt administrative measures were taken to dispatch
adequate military forces to various parts of the country. Catiline
himself had taken no overt action; he now presented himself in the
senate, was openly assailed by Cicero, responded with insults which were
interrupted by cries of indignation, and flung from the house with the
words "Since I am beset by enemies and driven out, the fire you have
kindled about me shall be crushed out by the ruin of yourselves."

Seeing that delay would be fatal, he started at once for the camp of
Manlius, leaving Cethegus and Lentulus to keep up the ferment in Rome.
To several persons of position he sent letters announcing that he was
retiring to Marseilles; but, with misplaced confidence, he sent one of a
different and extremely compromising tenor to Quintus Catullus, which
the recipient read to the senate. It was next reported that he had
assumed the consular attributes and joined Manlius; whereupon he was
proclaimed a public enemy, a general levy was decreed, Antonius was
appointed to take the field, while Cicero was to remain in the capital.

_II.--The Downfall_

Meanwhile, Lentulus at Rome, among his various plots, intrigued to
obtain the support of the Allobroges, a tribe of Gauls from whom there
was at the time an embassy in Rome. The envoys, however, took the advice
of Quintus Fabius Sanga, and while he kept Cicero supplied with
information, themselves pretended to be at one with the conspirators.

Risings were now taking place all over Italy, though they were
ill-concerted. At Rome, the plan was that when Catiline's army was at
Faesulae, the tribu