onsuls 450 years, as we have aforesaid,
and it is told more at length by Titus Livius and many other authors.
But note that the great power of the Romans was not alone in
themselves, save in so far that they were at the head and leaders; but
first all the Tuscans and then all the Italians followed them in their
wars and in their battles, and were all called Romans. But we will
now leave the order of the history of the Romans and of the Emperors,
save in so far as it shall pertain to our matter, returning to our
subject of the building of Florence, which we promised to narrate. And
we have made this long exordium, forasmuch as it was necessary to show
how the origin of the Roman builders of Florence (as hereafter will be
narrated) was derived from the noble Trojans; and the origin and
beginning of the Trojans was from Dardanus, son of Atlas, of the city
of Fiesole, as we have briefly recounted; and afterwards from the
descendants of the noble Romans, and of the Fiesolans, by the force of
the Romans a people was founded called Florentines.

Sec. 30.--_How a conspiracy was formed in Rome by Catiline and his
followers._

[Sidenote: 680 A.U.C.]

[Sidenote: Convivio iv. 5: 172-176.]

At the time when Rome was still ruled by the government of consuls, in
the year 680 from the foundation of the said city, Mark Tully Cicero
and Caius Antony being consuls, and Rome in great and happy state and
lordship, Catiline, a very noble citizen, descended by birth from the
royal house of Tarquin, being a man of dissolute life but brave and
daring in arms and a fine orator, but not wise, being envious of the
good and rich and wise men who ruled the city, their lordship not
being pleasing to him, formed a conspiracy with many other nobles and
other followers disposed to evil-doing, and purposed to slay the
consuls and part of the senators, and to destroy their office, and to
overrun the city, robbing and setting fire to many parts thereof, and
to make himself ruler thereof; and this he would have done had it not
been warded off by the wit and foresight of the wise consul, Mark
Tully. So he defended the city from such ruin, and found out the said
conspiracy and treason; but because of the greatness and power of the
said Catiline, and because Tully was a new citizen in Rome, his father
having come from Capua or from some other town of the Campagna, he did
not dare to have Catiline seized or to bring him to justice, as his
misdeeds requir