th, Catiline was by
general suffrage again put by, and Silanus and Murena chosen consuls.

Not long after this, Catiline's soldiers got together in a body in
Etruria, and began to form themselves into companies, the day appointed
for the design being near at hand. About midnight, some of the principal
and most powerful citizens of Rome, Marcus, Crassus, Marcus Marcellus,
and Scipio Metellus went to Cicero's house, where, knocking at the gate,
and calling up the porter, they commanded him to awake Cicero, and
tell him they were there. The business was this: Crassus's porter after
supper had delivered to him letters brought by an unknown person. Some
of them were directed to others, but one to Crassus, without a name;
this only Crassus read, which informed him that there was a great
slaughter intended by Catiline, and advised him to leave the city. The
others he did not open, but went with them immediately to Cicero, being
affrighted at the danger, and to free himself of the suspicion he lay
under for his familiarity with Catiline. Cicero, considering the matter,
summoned the senate at break of day. The letters he brought with him,
and delivered them to those to whom they were directed, commanding
them to read them publicly; they all alike contained an account of
the conspiracy. And when Quintus Arrius, a man of praetorian dignity,
recounted to them, how soldiers were collecting in companies in Etruria,
and Manlius was stated to be in motion with a large force, hovering
about those cities, in expectation of intelligence from Rome, the senate
made a decree to place all in the hands of the consuls, who should
undertake the conduct of everything, and do their best to save the
state. This was not a common thing, but only done by the senate in cases
of imminent danger.

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 a