Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/136

112 defence, evidently believed to be overwhelming. He was acquitted by the jury, but according to Quintus Cicero the verdict cost him a ruinous sum in bribes. At any rate we find him immediately afterwards overwhelmed with debt, and ready for desperate methods of extrication. He had by this time completely deserted his old party and was among the most violent members of the opposition. The hopes which the democrats had of useful service from him are attested by Cæsar's action when in 64 B.C. he brought to trial the assassins of Sulla's Proscription. Everyone knew that Catiline had been a ring-leader amongst these; but Cæsar, who throughout his life let by-gones be by-gones whenever he had any present purpose to serve, screened him from punishment. In private life Catiline was known to be both dissolute and unscrupulous. He had many of the qualities necessary for a revolutionary chief—a powerful frame, a fearless temper, great capacity for endurance, a ready tongue, and a faculty of adapting himself to his company and winning familiarity with good and bad alike. At the same time he was hopelessly deficient, as the event showed, in the most essential qualifications of a leader, the cool head, the keen eye for the real forces to be dealt with, and the power of co-ordinating means to ends.

We have seen that in the years of Pompey's absence the democratic party under its recognised leaders Cæsar and Crassus was engaged in fruitless