service of the State, and that his own austerity was helping on the projects of the very men whose execution he was himself to urge a few days later.
The trial of Murena took place about the end of November. Meanwhile the conspirators in the city anxiously awaited the appearance of Catiline and his army. Their chief was Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura, who had been consul in 71 B.C., and had been afterwards expelled from the Senate by the censors. He had recovered his seat by being again elected to the prætorship, and was now serving that office. He appears to have been a man of flighty and credulous temperament. He lent his ears to designing soothsayers who persuaded him that a Sibylline oracle had foretold the domination in Rome of three Cornelii. Part of the prophecy, they said, had been already fulfilled by Cinna and Sulla, and Lentulus was marked by fate to be the third. Other senators and knights of good family, Autronius, Gabinius, Statilius, Cassius, and Cethegus were associated with him. Cethegus was supposed to be the most energetic of the conspirators and always urged immediate and violent measures. Cicero had failed as yet to get evidence of any overt act which would justify the arrest of these men, but at length their own folly gave him the desired opportunity.
There were present in Rome at this time some envoys from the Allobroges of Transalpine Gaul. The Allobroges were overwhelmed with a burden of debt to Roman money-lenders and were ready for any desperate action. In the meantime they had sent an embassy to Rome to beg some relief from
