became rapacious and insupportable.
At first, however, it was ambition, rather than avarice, that influenced the minds of men—a vice which approaches nearer to virtue than the other. For of glory, honor, and power, the worthy is as desirous as the worthless; but the one pursues them by just methods; the other, being destitute of honorable qualities, works with fraud and deceit. But avarice has merely money for its object, which no wise man has ever immoderately desired. It is a vice which, as if imbued with deadly poison, enervates whatever is manly in body or mind. It is always unbounded and insatiable, and is abated neither by abundance nor by want.
But after Lucius Sulla, having recovered the government by force of arms, proceeded, after a fair commencement, to a pernicious termination, all became robbers and plunderers; some set their affections on houses, others on lands; his victorious troops knew neither restraint nor moderation, but inflicted on the citizens disgraceful and inhuman outrages. Their rapacity was increased by the circumstance that Sulla, in order to secure the attachment of the forces which he had commanded in Asia, had treated them, contrary to the practise of our ancestors, with extraordinary indulgence and exemption from discipline; and pleasant and luxurious quarters had easily, during seasons of idleness, enervated the minds of the soldiery. Then the armies of the Roman people first became habituated to licentiousness and intemperance, and began to admire statues, pictures, and sculptured vases; to seize such 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. …
II
THE FATE OF THE CONSPIRATORS[62]
When the Senate, as I have stated, had gone over to the opinion of Cato, the Consul, thinking it best not to wait till night, which was coming on, lest any new attempts should be made during the interval, ordered the triumvirs to make such preparations as the execution of the conspirators required. He himself, having posted the necessary guards, conducted Lentulus[63] to the prison; and the same office was performed for the rest by the prætors.
There is a place in the prison, which is called the Tullian dungeon,[64] and which, after a slight ascent to the left, is sunk about twelve feet under ground. Walls secure it on every side, and over it is a vaulted roof connected with stone arches; but its appearance is disgusting and horrible, by reason of the filth, darkness, and stench. When Lentulus had been let down into this place, certain men, to whom orders had been given, strangled him with a cord. Thus this patrician who was of the illustrious family of the Cornelii, and who had filled the office of Consul at Rome, met with an end suited to his character and conduct. On Cethegus, Statilius, Gabinius, and Cœparius, punishment was inflicted in a similar manner.
During these proceedings at Rome, Catiline, out of the entire force which he himself had brought with him, and that which Manlius had previously collected, formed two legions, filling up the cohorts as far as his numbers would allow; and afterward, as any volunteers, or recruits from his confederates, arrived in his camp, he distributed them equally throughout the cohorts, and thus filled up his legions, in a short time, with their regular number of men, tho at first he had not had more than two thousand. But, of his whole army, only about a fourth part had the proper weapons of soldiers; the rest, as chance had equipped them, carried darts, spears, or sharpened stakes.
As Antonius[65] approached with his army, Catiline directed his march over the hills, encamping, at one time, in the direction of Rome, at another in that of Gaul. He gave the enemy no opportunity of fighting, yet hoped himself shortly to find one, if his accomplices at Rome should succeed in their objects. Slaves, meanwhile, of whom vast numbers had at first flocked to him, he continued to reject, not only as depending on the strength of the conspiracy, but as thinking it impolitic to appear to share the cause of citizens with runagates.
When it was reported in his camp, however, that the conspiracy had been discovered at Rome, and that Lentulus, Cethegus, and the rest whom I have named had been put to death, most of those whom the hope of plunder or the love of change had led to join in the war fell away. The remainder Catiline conducted, over rugged mountains and by forced marches, into the neighborhood of Pistoria, with a view to escape covertly, by crossroads, into Gaul.
But Quintus Metellus Celer, who, with a force of three legions, had, at that time, his station at Picenum, suspected that Catiline, from the difficulties of his position, would adopt precisely the course which we have just described. When, therefore, he had learned Catiline's route from some deserters, he immediately broke up his camp, and took his post at the very foot of the hills, at the point where Catiline's descent would be, in his hurried march into Gaul.[66] Nor was Antonius far distant, as he was pursuing, tho with a large army, yet through plainer ground, and with fewer hindrances, the enemy in retreat.
Catiline, when he saw that he was surrounded by mountains and by hostile forces, that his schemes in the city had been unsuccessful, and that there was no hope either of escape or of succor, thinking it best, in such circumstances, to try the fortune of a battle, resolved upon engaging, as speedily as possible, with Antonius. …
When he had spoken, he ordered, after a short delay, the signal for battle to be sounded, and led down his troops, in regular order, to the level ground. Having then sent away the horses of all the cavalry, in order to increase the men's courage by making their danger equal, he himself, on foot, drew up his troops suitably to their numbers and the nature of the ground. As a plain stretched between the mountains