s
against Pompeius. On the first news of the blow struck in the capital,
the governor Gnaeus Piso was to raise the banner of insurrection
in Hither Spain. Communication could not be held with him by way
of the sea, since Pompeius commanded the seas. For this purpose
they reckoned on the Transpadanes the old clients of the democracy--
among whom there was great agitation, and who would of course have
at once received the franchise--and, further, on different Celtic
tribes.(13) The threads of this combination reached as far as
Mauretania. One of the conspirators, the Roman speculator Publius
Sittius from Nuceria, compelled by financial embarrassments
to keep aloof from Italy, had armed a troop of desperadoes there
and in Spain, and with these wandered about as a leader of free-lances
in western Africa, where he had old commercial connections.

Consular Elections
Cicero Elected instead of Catalina

The party put forth all its energies for the struggle
of the election. Crassus and Caesar staked their money--whether their
own or borrowed--and their connections to procure the consulship
for Catilina and Antonius; the comrades of Catilina strained every
nerve to bring to the helm the man who promised them the magistracies
and priesthoods, the palaces and country-estates of their opponents,
and above all deliverance from their debts, and who, they knew,
would keep his word. The aristocracy was in great perplexity,
chiefly because it was not able even to start counter-candidates.
That such a candidate risked his head, was obvious; and the times
were past when the post of danger allured the burgess--now even
ambition was hushed in presence of fear. Accordingly the nobility
contented themselves with making a feeble attempt to check
electioneering intrigues by issuing a new law respecting
the purchase of votes--which, however, was thwarted by the veto
of a tribune of the people--and with turning over their votes
to a candidate who, although not acceptable to them, was at least
inoffensive. This was Marcus Cicero, notoriously a political
trimmer,(14) accustomed to flirt at times with the democrats,
at times with Pompeius, at times from a somewhat greater distance
with the aristocracy, and to lend his services as an advocate to every
influential man under impeachment without distinction of person
or party (he numbered even Catilina among his clients); belonging
properly to no party or--which was much the same--to the par