By break of day, he summoned the senate into the temple of Concord,
where he read the letters and examined the informers. Junius Silanus
further stated that several persons had heard Cethegus say that three
consuls and four praetors were to be slain; Piso, also, a person of
consular dignity, testified other matters of like nature; and Caius
Sulpicius, one of the praetors, being sent to Cethegus's house, found
there a quantity of darts and of armor, and a still greater number
of swords and daggers, all recently whetted. At length, the senate,
decreeing indemnity to the Crotonian upon his confession of the whole
matter, Lentulus was convicted, abjured his office (for he was then
praetor), and put off his robe edged with purple in the senate, changing
it for another garment more agreeable to his present circumstances. He,
thereupon, with the rest of his confederates present, was committed to
the charge of the praetors in free custody.

It being evening, and the common people in crowds expecting without,
Cicero went forth to them, and told them what was done, and then,
attended by them, went to the house of a friend and near neighbor; for
his own was taken up by the women, who were celebrating with secret
rites the feast of the goddess whom the Romans call the Good, and the
Greeks, the Women's goddess. For a sacrifice is annually performed to
her in the consul's house, either by his wife or mother, in the presence
of the vestal virgins. And having got into his friend's house privately,
a few only being present, he began to deliberate how he should treat
these men. The severest and the only punishment fit for such heinous
crimes, he was somewhat shy and fearful of inflicting, as well from the
clemency of his nature, as also lest he should be thought to exercise
his authority too insolently, and to treat too harshly men of the
noblest birth and most powerful friendships in the city; and yet, if he
should use them more mildly, he had a dreadful prospect of danger from
them. For there was no likelihood that, if they suffered less than
death, they would be reconciled, but, rather, adding new rage to their
former wickedness, they would rush into every kind of audacity, while
he himself, whose character for courage already did not stand very high
with the multitude, would be thought guilty of the greatest cowardice
and want of manliness.

While Cicero was in doubt what course to take, a portent happened to
the women in their