elf before his departure from Rome. A tribune
was to give the signal by calling an assembly of the people;
in the following night Cethegus was to despatch the consul Cicero;
Gabinius and Statilius were to set the city simultaneously
on fire at twelve places; and a communication was to be established
as speedily as possible with the army of Catilina, which should
have meanwhile advanced. Had the urgent representations of Cethegus
borne fruit and had Lentulus, who after Catilina's departure
was placed at the head of the conspirators, resolved on rapidly
striking a blow, the conspiracy might even now have been successful.
But the conspirators were just as incapable and as cowardly as their
opponents; weeks elapsed and the matter came to no decisive issue.

Conviction and Arrest of the Conspirators in the Capital

At length the countermine brought about a decision. Lentulus
in his tedious fashion, which sought to cover negligence in regard
to what was immediate and necessary by the projection of large
and distant plans, had entered into relations with the deputies
of a Celtic canton, the Allobroges, now present in Rome; had attempted
to implicate these--the representatives of a thoroughly disorganized
commonwealth and themselves deeply involved in debt--in the conspiracy;
and had given them on their departure messages and letters to his
confidants. The Allobroges left Rome, but were arrested in the night
between 2nd and 3rd Dec. close to the gates by the Roman authorities,
and their papers were taken from them. It was obvious
that the Allobrogian deputies had lent themselves as spies
to the Roman government, and had carried on the negotiations only
with a view to convey into the hands of the latter the desired proofs
implicating the ringleaders of the conspiracy. On the following
morning orders were issued with the utmost secrecy by Cicero
for the arrest of the most dangerous leaders of the plot,
and executed in regard to Lentulus, Cethegus, Gabinius,
and Statilius, while some others escaped from seizure by flight.
The guilt of those arrested as well as of the fugitives
was completely evident. Immediately after the arrest the letters seized,
the seals and handwriting of which the prisoners could not avoid
acknowledging, were laid before the senate, and the captives
and witnesses were heard; further confirmatory facts, deposits of arms
in the houses of the conspirators, threatening expressions
which they had employ