order, was in the East: and Catiline's candidature--and it was
supposed his policy also--had had the almost open support of the richest
man in Rome, M. Licinius Crassus, and of the most influential man of the
_populares_, C. Iulius Caesar. In the house of one or the other of them,
indeed, the meeting at which Catiline first unfolded his purposes was
believed to have been held. Still Catiline had not been guilty of any
overt act which enabled Cicero to attack him. He had, indeed, been
informed, on very questionable authority, that Catiline had made a plot
to assassinate him while holding the elections, and he made a
considerable parade of taking precautions for his safety--letting it be
seen that he wore a cuirass under his toga, and causing his house to be
guarded by the younger members of his party. The elections, according
to Plutarch, had at least been once postponed from the ordinary time in
July, though this has been denied.[7] At any rate it was not till they
had taken place and Catiline had been once more rejected, that any
definite step is alleged to have been taken by him, such as Cicero could
lay hold of to attack him. On the 20th of October, in the senate, Cicero
made a speech warning the Fathers of the impending danger, and on the
21st called upon Catiline for an explanation in their presence. But,
after all, even the famous meeting of the 5th of November, in the house
of M. Porcius Laeca, betrayed to Cicero by Fulvia, the mistress of Q.
Curius, would not have sufficed as grounds for the denunciation of the
first extant speech against Catiline (7th of November), if it had not
been for something else. For some months past there had been rumours of
risings in various parts of Italy; but by the beginning of November it
was known that C. Manlius (or Mallius) had collected a band of
desperadoes near Faesulae, and, having established there a camp on the
27th of October, meant to advance on Rome. 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
disturba