Lustrum

They have two, three or four houses joined together, when we have not a home to call our own. They have pictures and statues and fish ponds, while we have destitution and debts. Misery is all we have to look forward to.
    'Awake, then! Before you glimmers the chance for liberty – for honour and glory and the prizes of victory! Use me in whatever way you like, as a commander or as a soldier in your ranks, and remember the rich spoils that can be won in war! This is what I shall do for you if I am consul. Refuse to be slaves! Be masters! And let us show the world at last that we are men!'
    That, or something very like it, was the burden of Catilina's speech, and after he had delivered it he withdrew to an inner room for a more private discussion with his closest comrades, including Curius. Here, with the door firmly closed, he reminded them of their solemn blood oath, declared that the hour had come to strike, and proposed that they should kill Cicero on the Field of Mars during the confusion of the elections the following day. Curius claimed to have stayed only for part of this discussion before slipping away to pass on the warning to Cicero. He refused to swear an affidavit confirming this story. He absolutely insisted he would not be a witness. His name had to be kept out of it at all costs. 'You must tell the consul that if he calls on me, I shall deny everything.'
    By the time I got back to Cicero's house, the door was barred and only those visitors who were known and trusted were being admitted. A crowd had gathered in the street. When I went into his study, Quintus and Atticus were already there. I relayed Curius's message, and showed Cicero his description of whatCatilina had said. 'Now I have him!' he said. 'He's gone too far this time!' And he sent for the leaders of the senate. At least a dozen came during the course of that afternoon and evening, among them Hortensius and Catulus. Cicero showed them what Catilina was supposed to have said, along with the unsigned death threat. But when he refused to divulge his source ('I have given my word'), I could see that several – particularly Catulus, who had at one time been a great friend of Catilina – became sceptical. Indeed, knowing Cicero's cleverness, they obviously wondered if he might be making the whole thing up in order to discredit his enemy. Unnerved by their reaction, Cicero began to lose confidence.
    There are times in politics, as in life generally, when whatever one does is wrong; this was just such an occasion. To have gone ahead with the elections and said nothing would have been a mad gamble. On the other hand, postponing them without adequate evidence now looked jittery. Cicero passed a sleepless night worrying about what he should say in the senate, and for once in the morning it showed. He looked like a man under appalling strain.
    That day when the senate reassembled there was not an inch of space on the benches. Senators lined the walls and crammed the gangways. The auspices had been read and the doors opened soon after daybreak. It was the earliest session that anyone could remember. Yet already the summer heat was building. The question was: would the consular election go ahead or not? Outside, the forum was packed with citizens, mostly Catilina's supporters, and their angry chants, demanding to be allowed to vote, could be heard in the chamber. Beyond the city walls on the Field of Mars the sheep pens and ballot urns were set up and waiting. Inside the senate house it felt as if two gladiators were about tofight. As Cicero stood, I could see Catilina in his place on the front bench, his cronies around him, as coolly insolent as ever, with Caesar close by, his arms folded.
    'Gentlemen,' Cicero began, 'no consul lightly intervenes in the sacred business of an election – especially not a consul such as I, who owes everything he has to election by the Roman people. But yesterday I was given warning of a plot to desecrate this most holy ritual – a plot, an intrigue, a conspiracy of desperate men, to take advantage of the tumult of polling day to murder your consul, foment chaos in the city, and so enable them to take control of the state. This despicable scheme was hatched not in some foreign land, or low criminal's hovel, but in the heart of the city, in the house of Sergius Catilina.'
    The senators listened in absolute stillness as Cicero read out the anonymous note from Curius ('
You will be murdered tomorrow during the