ent on the
occasion, and the threat probably had been uttered at an earlier period
of Catiline's career. Cicero tells us expressly, in one of his
subsequent works, that Catiline was struck dumb.[200]

Of this first Catiline oration Sallust says, that "Marcus Tullius the
Consul, either fearing the presence of the man, or stirred to anger,
made a brilliant speech, very useful to the Republic."[201] This, coming
from an enemy, is stronger testimony to the truth of the story told by
Cicero, than would have been any vehement praise from the pen of a
friend.

Catiline met some of his colleagues the same night. They were the very
men who as Senators had been present at his confusion, and to them he
declared his purpose of going. There was nothing to be done in the city
by him. The Consul was not to be reached. Catiline himself was too
closely watched for personal action. He would join the army at Faesulae
and then return and burn the city. His friends, Lentulus, Cethegus, and
the others, were to remain and be ready for fire and slaughter as soon
as Catiline with his army should appear before the walls. He went, and
Cicero had been so far successful.

But these men, Lentulus, Cethegus, and the other Senators, though they
had not dared to sit near Catiline in the Senate, or to speak a word to
him, went about their work zealously when evening had come. A report was
spread among the people that the Consul had taken upon himself to drive
a citizen into exile. Catiline, the ill-used Catiline--Catiline, the
friend of the people, had, they said, gone to Marseilles in order that
he might escape the fury of the tyrant Consul. In this we see the
jealousy of Romans as to the infliction of any punishment by an
individual officer on a citizen. It was with a full knowledge of what
was likely to come that Cicero had ironically declared that he only
advised the conspirator to go. The feeling was so strong that on the
next morning he found himself compelled to address the people on the
subject. Then was uttered the second Catiline oration, which was spoken
in the open air to the citizens at large. Here too there are words,
among those with which he began his speech, almost as familiar to us as
the "Quousque tandem"--"Abiit; excessit; evasit; erupit!" This Catiline,
says Cicero, this pest of his country, raging in his madness, I have
turned out of the city. If you like it better, I have expelled him by my
very words. "He has departed. He has