He himself, as the election day approached, and
Cicero's year of office was drawing to an end, took up the character of an
aristocratic demagogue, and asked for the suffrages of the people as the
champion of the poor against the rich, as the friend of the wretched and
oppressed; and those who thought themselves wretched and oppressed in Rome
were so large a body, and so bitterly hostile were they all to the
prosperous classes, that his election was anticipated as a certainty. In
the Senate the consulship of Catiline was regarded as no less than an
impending national calamity. Marcus Cato, great-grandson of the censor,
then growing into fame by his acrid tongue and narrow republican
fanaticism, who had sneered at Pompey's victories as triumphs over women,
and had not spared even Cicero himself, threatened Catiline in the Curia.
Catiline answered, in a fully attended house, that if any agitation was
kindled against him he would put it out, not with water, but with
revolution. His language became so audacious that, on the eve of the
election day, Cicero moved for a postponement, that the Senate might take
his language into consideration. Catiline's conduct was brought on for
debate, and the consul called on him to explain himself. There was no
concealment in Catiline. Then and always Cicero admits he was perfectly
frank.
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