The
Gauls were the one foreign nation whom the Romans really feared. The
passes of the Alps alone protected Italy from the hordes of German or
Gallic barbarians, whose numbers being unknown were supposed to be
exhaustless. Middle-aged men could still remember the panic at the
invasion of the Cimbri and Teutons, and it was the chief pride of the
democrats that the State had then been saved by their own Marius. At the
critical moment it was discovered that the conspirators had entered into a
correspondence with these Allobroges, and had actually proposed to them to
make a fresh inroad over the Alps. The suspicion of such an intention at
once alienated from Catiline the respectable part of the democratic party.
The fact of the communication was betrayed to Cicero. He intercepted the
letters; he produced them in the Senate with the seals unbroken, that no
suspicion might rest upon himself. Lentulus and Cethegus were sent for,
and could not deny their hands. The letters were then opened and read, and
no shadow of uncertainty any longer remained that they had really designed
to bring in an army of Gauls. Such of the conspirators as were known and
were still within reach were instantly seized.
[Sidenote: December 5, B.C. 63.]
Cicero, with a pardonable laudation of himself and of the Divine
Providence of which he professed to regard himself as the minister,
congratulated his country on its escape from so genuine a danger; and he
then invited the Senate to say what was to be done with these apostates
from their order, whose treason was now demonstrated.
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