Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/60

 52 CICERO. The remainder of those in the city whom he had cor- rupted, Cornelius Lentulus kept together and encouraged. He had the surname Sura, and was a man of a noble family, but a dissolute liver, who for his debauchery was formerly turned out of the senate, and was now holding the office of prjetor for the second time, as the custom is with those who desire to regain the dignity of senator. It is said that he got the surname Sura upon this occasion ; being quaestor in the time of Sylla, he had lavished away and consumed a great quantity of the public moneys, at which Sylla being provoked, called him to give an account in the senate ; he appeared with great coolness and con- tempt, and said he had no account to give, but they might take this, holding up the calf of his leg, as boys do at ball, when they have missed. Upon which he was surnamed /Sura, sura being the Roman Avord for the calf of the leg. Being at another time prose- cuted at law, and having bribed some of the judges, he escaped only by two votes, and complained of the need- less expense he had gone to in paying for a second, aa one would have sufficed to acquit him. This man, such in his OAvn nature, and now inflamed by Catiline, false prophets and fortune-tellers had also corrupted with vain hopes, quoting to him fictitious verses and oracles, and proving from the Sibylline prophecies that there were three of the name Cornelius designed by fate to be mon- archs of Rome ; two of whom, Cinna and Sylla, had already fulfilled the decree, and that divine fortune was now advancing with the gift of monarchy for the remain- ing third Cornelius ; and that therefore he ought by all means to accept it, and not lose opportunity by delay, as Catiline had done. Lentulvis, therefore, designed no mean or trivial matter, for he had resolved to kill the whole senate, and as many other citizens as he could, to fire the city, and spare