Catilinae Coniuratio
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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But previously
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1
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to this period, a small number of persons, among whom was Catiline, had formed a design against the state: of which affair I shall here give as accurate account as I am able.
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Under the consulship of Lucius Tullus and Marcus Lepidus, Publius Autronius and Publius Sylla,
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having been tried for bribery under the laws against it,
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2
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had paid the penalty of the offense. Shortly after Catiline, being brought to trial for extortion,
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had been prevented from standing for the consulship, because he had been unable to declare himself a candidate within the legitimate number of days.
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There was at that time,
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too, a young patrician of the most daring spirit, needy and discontented, named Cneius
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Piso
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,
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whom poverty and vicious principles instigated to disturb the government. Catiline and Autronius,
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having concerted measures with this Piso, prepared to assassinate the consuls, Lucius Cotta and Lucius Torquatus, in the Capitol, on the first of January,
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7
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when they, having seized on the fasces, were to send Piso with an army to take possession of the two
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Spains
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.
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But their design being discovered, they postponed the assassination to the fifth of February; when they meditated the destruction, not of the consuls only, but of most of the senate. And had not Catiline, who was in front of the senate-house, been too hasty to give the singal to his associates, there would that day have been perpetrated the most atrocious outrage since the city of
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Rome
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was founded. But as the armed conspirators had not yet assembled in sufficient numbers, the want of force frustrated the design.