objects alike in public
edifices and private dwellings; to spoil temples; and to cast off
respect for everything, sacred and profane. Such troops, accordingly,
when once they obtained the mastery, left nothing to the vanquished.
Success unsettles the principles even of the wise, and scarcely would
those of debauched habits use victory with moderation....

In so populous and so corrupt a city, Catiline, as it was very easy to
do, kept about him, like a body-guard, crowds of the unprincipled and
desperate. For all those shameless, libertine, and profligate
characters who had dissipated their patrimonies by gaming, luxury, and
sensuality; all who had contracted heavy debts, to purchase immunity
for their crimes or offenses; all assassins or sacrilegious persons
from every quarter, convicted or dreading conviction for their evil
deeds; all, besides, whom their tongue or their hand maintained by
perjury or civil bloodshed; all, in fine, whom wickedness, poverty, or
a guilty conscience disquieted, were the associates and intimate
friends of Catiline. And if any one, as yet of unblemished character,
fell into his society, he was presently rendered, by daily intercourse
and temptation, similar and equal to the rest. But it was the young
whose acquaintance he chiefly courted, as their minds, ductile and
unsettled from their age, were easily ensnared by his stratagems. For
as the passions of each, according to his years, appeared excited, he
furnished mistresses to some, bought horses and dogs for others, and
spared, in a word, neither his purse nor his character, if he could
but make them his devoted and trustworthy supporters. There were some,
I know, who thought that the youth who frequented the house of
Catiline were guilty of crimes against nature; but this report arose
rather from other causes than from any evidence of the fact....

Depending on such accomplices and adherents, and knowing that the load
of debt was everywhere great, and that the veterans of Sulla,[60]
having spent their money too liberally, and remembering their spoils
and former victory, were longing for a civil war, Catiline formed the
design of overthrowing the government. There was no army in Italy;
Pompey was fighting in a distant part of the world;[61] he himself had
great hopes of obtaining the consulship; the Senate was wholly off its
guard; everything was quiet and tranquil, and all these circumstances
were exceedingly favorable for Catiline....