Undoubtedly it was
desirable to strain the usual rules to keep a wretch like Catiline from
the consulship; but as certainly, both before the election and after it,
Catiline had the sympathies of a very large part of the resident
inhabitants of the city, and these sympathies must be taken into account
if we are to understand the long train of incidents of which this occasion
was the beginning.
Two strict aristocrats, Decimus Silanus and Lucius Murena,[12] were
declared elected. Pompey was on his way home, but had not yet reached
Italy. There were no regular troops in the whole peninsula, and the
nearest approach to an army was the body of Syllans, whom Manlius had
quietly collected at Fiesole. Cicero's colleague Antonius was secretly in
communication with Catiline, evidently thinking it likely that he would
succeed. Catiline determined to wait no longer, and to raise an
insurrection in the capital, with slave emancipation and a cancelling of
debt for a cry. Manlius was to march on Rome, and the Senate, it was
expected, would fall without a blow. Caesar and Crassus sent a warning to
Cicero to be on his guard. Caesar had called Catiline to account for his
doings at the time of the proscription, and knew his nature too well to
expect benefit to the people from a revolution conducted under the
auspices of bankrupt patrician adventurers.
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