Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/142

118 counteract each other by their mutual jealousies, and the Roman Knights were to be kept quiet by being allowed to see Crassus, the greatest of all the moneyed men, at the head of the movement. Viewed as a plan of revolution, the defect in this scheme lay not in the general lines on which it was framed, but in the great difficulty of getting it launched. Catiline's plan on the other hand presented a fatal facility in its initial stage, but it led up necessarily to a result the very contrary of that which Cæsar hoped to accomplish. Its first effect was to produce a cordial union between the Senate and the equestrian order. Now one of two things must happen: either these two united would be strong enough to deal with Catiline—this of course was the actual result,—or else the senatorial government would collapse and Catiline would be able to carry out his full programme and establish in Rome a revolutionary government of the same bloody type as that of Marius and Cinna. The conspirators forgot that in one essential point their situation differed from that of which Cinna had taken advantage. The revolutionary movement of 87 B.C. had been possible because Sulla and his army were engaged with Mithridates. It took Sulla three years to dispose of his great enemy, and until this was done, happen what might in Italy, he could not stir. A three years' respite was thus allowed to the new government, and it was only by its own folly that it did not use the time in building up a military