nd Marcius. They came by break of day, and being
denied entrance, made an outcry and disturbance at the gates, which
excited all the more suspicion. But Cicero, going forth, summoned the
senate into the temple of Jupiter Stator, which stands at the end of the
Sacred Street, going up to the Palatine. And when Catiline with others
of his party also came, as though intending to make his defence, none of
the senators would sit by him, but all of them left the bench where he
had placed himself. And when he began to speak, they interrupted him
with outcries. At length, Cicero, standing up, commanded him to leave
the city; for, since one governed the commonwealth with words, the other
with arms, it was necessary that there should be a wall betwixt them.
Catiline, therefore, immediately left the town, with three hundred
armed men; and assuming, like a magistrate, the rods, axes, and military
ensigns, he went to Manlius, and having got together a body of near
twenty thousand men, with these he marched to the several cities,
endeavoring to persuade or force them to revolt. It being now come to
open war, Antonius was sent forth to fight him.

The remainder of those in the city whom he had corrupted, Cornelius
Lentulus kept together and encouraged. He had the surname Sura, and was
a man of a noble family, but a dissolute liver, who for his debauchery
was formerly turned out of the senate, and was now holding the office of
praetor for the second time, as the custom is with those who desire to
regain the dignity of senator. It is said that he got the surname Sura
upon this occasion; being quaestor in the time of Sylla, he had lavished
away and consumed a great quantity of the public moneys, at which Sylla,
being provoked, called him to give an account in the senate. He appeared
with great coolness and contempt, and said he had no account to give,
but they might take this, holding up the calf of his leg, as boys do at
ball, when they have missed. Upon which he was surnamed Sura, sura being
the Roman word for the calf of the leg. Being at another time prosecuted
at law, and having bribed some of the judges, he escaped by only two
votes, and complained of the needless expense he had gone to in paying
for a second, as one would have sufficed to acquit him. This man, such
in his own nature, and now inflamed by Catiline, false prophets and
fortune-tellers had also corrupted with vain hopes, quoting to him
fictitious verses and oracles, and