nt of an ancient patrician family
which had sunk into poverty, and he first appears in history as a
zealous partisan of Sulla. During the horrors of the proscription he
killed his brother-in-law, Q. Caecilius, and is said to have murdered
even his own brother. His youth was spent in the open indulgence of
every vice, and it was believed that he had made away with his first
wife, and afterward with his son, in order that he might marry the
profligate Aurelia Orestilla, who objected to the presence of a grown-up
step-child. Notwithstanding these crimes, he acquired great popularity
among the younger nobles by his agreeable address and his zeal in
ministering to their pleasures. He possessed extraordinary powers of
mind and body, and all who came in contact with him submitted more or
less to the ascendency of his genius. He was Praetor in B.C. 68; was
Governor of Africa during the following year; and returned to Rome in
B.C. 66, in order to press his suit for the Consulship. The election for
B.C. 65 was carried by P. Autronius Paetus and P. Cornelius Sulla, both
of whom were soon after convicted of bribery, and their places supplied
by their competitors and accusers, L. Aurelius Cotta and L. Manlius
Torquatus. Catiline, who was desirous of becoming a candidate, had been
disqualified in consequence of an impeachment for oppression in his
province preferred by P. Clodius Pulcher. Exasperated by their
disappointment, Autronius and Catiline formed a project, along with Cn.
Calpurnius Piso, another profligate young nobleman, to murder the new
Consuls upon the first of January, when offering up their vows in the
Capitol, after which Autronius and Catiline were to seize the fasces,
and Piso was to be dispatched with an army to occupy the Spains. This
extraordinary design is said to have been frustrated solely by the
impatience of Catiline, who gave the signal prematurely before the whole
of the armed agents had assembled.

Encouraged rather than disheartened by a failure which had so nearly
proved a triumph, Catiline was soon after left completely unfettered by
his acquittal upon trial for extortion, a result secured by the liberal
bribes administered to the accuser as well as to the jury. From this
time he proceeded more systematically, and enlisted a more numerous body
of supporters. In the course of B.C. 64 he had enrolled several Senators
in his ranks, among others P. Cornelius Lentulus Sura, who had been
Consul in B.C. 71, a