nce was brewing; the senate voted that there was a _tumultus_,
authorized the raising of troops, and named commanders in the several
districts affected. It was complicity in this rising that Cicero now
sought to establish against Catiline and his partisans in Rome. The
report of the meeting in the house of Laeca gave him the pretext for his
first step--a fiery denunciation of Catiline in the senate on the 7th of
November. Catiline left Rome, joined the camp of Manlius, and assumed
the ensigns of _imperium_. That he was allowed thus to leave the city
is a proof that Cicero had as yet no information enabling him to act at
once. It was the right of every citizen to avoid standing a trial by
going into exile. Catiline was now under notice of prosecution for
_vis_, and when leaving Rome he professed to be going to Marseilles,
which had the _ius exilii_. But when it was known that he had stopped
short at Faesulae, the senate at once declared both him and Manlius
_hostes_, and authorized the consuls to proceed against them. The
expedition was intrusted to Antonius, in spite of his known sympathy
with Catiline, while Cicero was retained with special powers to protect
the city. The result is too well known to be more than glanced at here.
Catiline's partisans were detected by letters confided to certain envoys
of the Allobroges, which were held to convict them of the guilt of
treason, as instigating Catiline to march on Rome, and the senate of the
Allobroges to assist the invasion by sending cavalry to Faesulae.

[Sidenote: Execution of the conspirators, December, B.C. 63. Its legal
grounds and consequences.]

The decree of the senate, _videant consules, etc._, had come to be
considered as reviving the full _imperium_ of the consul, and investing
him with the power of life and death over all citizens. Cicero acted on
this (questionable) constitutional doctrine. He endeavoured, indeed, to
shelter himself under the authority of a senatorial vote. But the senate
never had the power to try or condemn a citizen. It could only record
its advice to the consul. The whole legal responsibility for the
condemnation and death of the conspirators, arrested in consequence of
these letters, rested on the consul. To our moral judgment as to
Cicero's conduct it is of primary importance to determine whether or not
these men were guilty: to his legal and constitutional position it
matters not at all. Nor was that point ever raised against him. The