expelled from the senate and now, in order to get back into
the senate, praetor for the second time, and the two former praetors
Publius Autronius and Lucius Cassius--were incapable men; Lentulus
an ordinary aristocrat of big words and great pretensions, but slow
in conception and irresolute in action; Autronius distinguished
for nothing but his powerful screaming voice; while as to Lucius
Cassius no one comprehended how a man so corpulent and so simple
had fallen among the conspirators. But Catilina could not venture
to place his abler partisans, such as the young senator Gaius
Cethegus and the equites Lucius Statilius and Publius Gabinius
Capito, at the head of the movement; for even among the conspirators
the traditional hierarchy of rank held its ground, and the very
anarchists thought that they should be unable to carry the day
unless a consular or at least a praetorian were at their head.
Therefore, however urgently the army of the insurrection might
long for its general, and however perilous it was for the latter
to remain longer at the seat of government after the outbreak
of the revolt, Catilina nevertheless resolved still to remain
for a time in Rome. Accustomed to impose on his cowardly opponents
by his audacious insolence, he showed himself publicly in the Forum
and in the senate-house and replied to the threats which were
there addressed to him, that they should beware of pushing him
to extremities; that, if they should set the house on fire, he would
be compelled to extinguish the conflagration in ruins. In reality
neither private persons nor officials ventured to lay hands
on the dangerous man; it was almost a matter of indifference
when a young nobleman brought him to trial on account of violence,
for long before the process could come to an end, the question could not
but be decided elsewhere. But the projects of Catilina failed;
chiefly because the agents of the government had made their way
into the circle of the conspirators and kept it accurately informed
of every detail of the plot. When, for instance, the conspirators
appeared before the strong Praeneste (1 Nov.), which they had hoped
to surprise by a -coup de main-, they found the inhabitants warned
and armed; and in a similar way everything miscarried. Catilina
with all his temerity now found it advisable to fix his departure
for one of the ensuing days; but previously on his urgent exhortation,
at a last conference of the conspirators in