At this time, when the conspiracy was at its height; when Catiline was starting for the army, and Lentulus was being left in the city; when Cassius was being appointed to superintend the burning of the city, and Cethegus the massacre; when Autronius had the part allotted to him of occupying Italy; when, in short, everything was being arranged, and settled, and prepared; where, O Cornelius, was Sulla? Was he at Rome? No, he was very far away. Was he in those districts to which Catiline was betaking himself? He was still further from them. Was he in the Camertine, Picenian, or Gallic district? lands which the disease, as it were, of that frenzy had infected most particularly. Nothing is further from the truth; for he was, as I have said already, at Naples. He was in that part of Italy which above all others was free from all suspicion of being implicated in that business.
What then
does he state in his information, or what does he allege—I mean Cornelius, or you who bring
these messages from him? He says that gladiators were bought, under pretence of some games to be
exhibited by Faustus, for the purposes of slaughter and tumult.—Just so;—the gladiators are
mentioned whom we know that he was bound to provide according to his father's will. “But he
seized on a whole household of gladiators; and if he had left that alone, some other troop might
have discharged the duty to which Faustus was bound.” I wish this troop could satisfy not only
the envy of parties unfavourable to him, but even the expectations of reasonable men. “He was in
a desperate hurry, when the time for the exhibition was still far off.” As if in reality, the
time for the exhibition was not drawing very near. This household of slaves