Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/181

63 B.C.] by a dramatic revelation of the total collapse of the schemes of his confederates in the city, and by a startling example of the length to which the consul and the Senate were prepared to go in dealing with them. Down to the Nones of December, it was not clear which party had most force on its side. When once this question seemed to be decided, Catiline lost his chief hopes of support. All the outer circle of his followers deserted him, and he was left alone with a handful of desperate men for whom there was no retreat.

No State trial, except that perhaps of Charles I., has ever been the subject of so much controversy as that which consigned Lentulus and his companions to the executioner. The clamour against Cicero's action began a few days later and never ceased until he was driven into banishment by a vote of the People. This condemnation was solemnly reversed, and the exile restored in triumph eighteen months later. But after nineteen centuries the controversy still rages, and the question is eagerly debated whether Cicero's act was that of a bold and public-spirited magistrate, who at a critical moment used his legitimate powers with rigour and discretion, or whether it was a judicial murder, perpetrated without legal warrant by a timid and self-seeking partisan.