Gaius
Manlius had planted at Faesulae the eagle round which the army
of the insurrection was to flock--it was one of the Marian eagles
from the Cimbrian war--and he had summoned the robbers
from the mountains as well as the country people to join him.
His proclamations, following the old traditions of the popular
party, demanded liberation from the oppressive load of debt
and a modification of the procedure in insolvency, which, if the amount
of the debt actually exceeded the estate, certainly still involved
in law the forfeiture of the debtor's freedom. It seemed as though
the rabble of the capital, in coming forward as if it were
the legitimate successor of the old plebeian farmers and fighting
its battles under the glorious eagles of the Cimbrian war, wished
to cast a stain not only on the present but on the past of Rome.
This rising, however, remained isolated; at the other places
of rendezvous the conspiracy did not go beyond the collection of arms
and the institution of secret conferences, as resolute leaders
were everywhere wanting. This was fortunate for the government;
for, although the impending civil war had been for a considerable time
openly announced, its own irresolution and the clumsiness
of the rusty machinery of administration had not allowed it to make
any military preparations whatever. It was only now that the general
levy was called out, and superior officers were ordered to the several
regions of Italy that each might suppress the insurrection
in his own district; while at the same time the gladiatorial slaves
were ejected from the capital, and patrols were ordered on account
of the apprehension of incendiarism.

The Conspirators in Rome

Catilina was in a painful position. According to his design
there should have been a simultaneous rising in the capital
and in Etruria on occasion of the consular elections; the failure
of the former and the outbreak of the latter movement endangered
his person as well as the whole success of his undertaking.
Now that his partisans at Faesulae had once risen in arms against
the government, he could no longer remain in the capital; and yet
not only did everything depend on his inducing the conspirators
of the capital now at least to strike quickly, but this had to be
done even before he left Rome--for he knew his helpmates too well
to rely on them for that matter. The more considerable
of the conspirators--Publius Lentulus Sura consul in 683, afterwards