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intended to check the growing power of Pompey. Caesar is elected Pontifex Maximus. Cicero carries in the Senate the proposal of a supplicatio of unusual length to Pompey in honour of his eastern triumphs.

§2. Having conciliated his colleague C. Antonius by resigning to him the governorship in 62 of the rich province of Macedonia, Cicero felt himself able in the autumn of 63 to oppose the treasonable designs of L. Sergius Catilina, of which he had full information from the spy, L. Curius. In the consular elections for 62 Catiline was again defeated. On October 21 Cicero foretold the rising of the Catilinarian Manlius in Etruria on the 27th. Martial law was proclaimed, and the conspirators failed in an attempt to seize Praeneste on November 1, and another plot to murder Cicero was exposed. But Catiline had the audacity to appear in the Senate on November 8, when Cicero so crushingly denounced him that he left Rome to take command of the insurgents in Etruria.

§3. Certain envoys of the Allobroges, having been approached by the conspirators to supply Catiline with cavalry, were arrested, and on the strength of incriminating letters found upon them the following five conspirators were seized and imprisoned—P. Lentulus Sura (praetor), C. Cethegus (senator), L. Statilius, P. Gabinius Cimber, and M. Caeparius; and at a meeting of the Senate on December 5, mainly at the instance of M. Cato, though Caesar, then praetor elect, was opposed to it, a decree was carried that the five conspirators arrested should be put to death, and that same evening they were strangled under Cicero's supervision.