54 CICERO. letters, the ambassadors of the AUobroges acting secretly m concert with him. By break of clay, he summoned the senate into the temple of Concord, where he read the letters and exam- ined the informers. Junius Silanus further stated, that several persons had heai'd Cethegus say, that three con- suls and four prastors were to be slain ; Piso, also, a person of consular dignity, testified other matters of the like nature; and Caius Sulpicius, one of the jjra^tors, being sent to Cethegus's house, found there a quantity of darts and of armor, and a still greater number of swords and daggers, all recently whetted. At length, the senate decreeing indemnity to the Crotonian upon his confession of the whole matter, Lentulus was convicted, abjured his office (for he was then praetor), and put off his robe edged with purple in the senate, changing it for another garment more agreeable to his present circumstances. He, thereupon, with the rest of his confederates present, was committed to the charge of the prfetors in free cus- tody. It being evening, and the common people in crowds expecting without, Cicero went forth to them, and told them what was done, and then, attended by them, went to the house of a friend and near neighbor ; for his own was taken uj) by the women, who were celebrating with secret rites the feast of the goddess whom the Eomans call the Good, and the Greeks, the Women's goddess. For a sacrifice is annually performed to her in the consul's house, either by his wife or mother, in the presence of the vestal virgins. And having got into his friend's house privately, a few only being present, he began to deliber- ate how he should treat these men. The severest, and the only punishment fit for such heinous crimes, he was somewhat shy and fearful of inflicting, as well from the
