TALES OF THE ROMANS
tiful art is called elocution. It is the art of the actor and the orator.
Cicero's tongue charmed the Roman people. He was chosen first to one office, then another, and another, until he became consul. At that time a nobleman named Catiline, who had a fierce and reckless temper, collected twenty thousand men, and hoped to destroy the senate and set up a new government in Rome.
The Romans held a merry festival in the month of December, just as we keep Christmas. Some of Catiline's friends had formed a plot to set fire to Rome during the holiday-making. A hundred fellows had agreed each to take his station at a certain part of the city, and apply a torch to some wooden building, and so start a hundred blazes at once. And when the streets roared with red flame, and folk ran here and there in fear, the friends of Catiline would clash their arms, and cry aloud that a new power had risen in Rome, and there would be new governors over the vast empire from Spain to Asia.
But Cicero, the consul, was aware of the horrid plan. His spies brought word of all that went on in dark meeting-places. Five leaders were arrested, and a pile of javelins, swords, and daggers was found in a house, and seized in the name of the senate.
What should be done with the five conspirators?
148
