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 for some convulsion which might improve their condition. At the head of the first party was Pompey, now absent in Asia. In his absence, the soul of the oligarchical party was the celebrated Marcus Tullius Cicero—an advocate of extraordinary intellect, born 106, a few months after Pompey, and who, entering public life early, had soon established his reputation as the first orator in Rome. Of plebeian birth, it might have been expected that he would attach himself to the democratic side; but circumstances, and his natural disposition, which was weak, and fond of the consideration of others, had won him over to the side of the oligarchy, to whom his talents were invaluable. Having passed through the quæstorship, and edileship, and prætorship, which last he held 66, he now aspired to the highest dignity in the state. Such was the leader of the oligarchical party. The leader of the aristocratic party was Crassus, formerly the colleague of Pompey in the consulship, and now his personal rival. Besides Crassus, the senators had an active and most conscientious partisan in Marcus Porcius Cato, who had been tribune of the people—a great-grandson of Cato the Censor, and possessed of all his integrity. The leader of the third or Marian party was a man six years younger than Pompey or Cicero, and who, known during his youth for his accomplishments, his love of pleasure, his firmness of purpose, and the boundless generosity of his character, had just earned for himself the applauses of all Rome by the lavish magnificence of his edileship ( 65). This was Caius Julius Cæsar, the greatest man that ever Rome produced. He was the son of a man who had died suddenly, without having made any figure in public life; his family was one of the noblest in Rome; and his aunt had been the wife of Marius. Literature and pleasure had occupied his youth, and only now was he beginning to take an active part in public affairs, although with a force and earnestness which at once marked him out as a man who was to lead. With chivalrous recklessness of consequences, he had done justice to his uncle's memory at a time when it was hardly safe to mention the name of Marius; and now the relics of the Marian party gathered round him with hope, while the oligarchy and aristocracy, with the presentiment of what he was to become, would fain have crushed him. Nine years older than Cæsar, and three years older than Cicero or Pompey, was the leader of the fourth or military faction—Lucius Sergius Catilina, more commonly called Catiline, a man of illustrious birth, and who had distinguished himself as one of the ablest and most ferocious officers of Sulla. His reputation, owing partly to his haggard personal appearance, and partly to vague rumors of horrible crimes which he had committed, was one of the blackest; and as he walked along the streets with gigantic body, but hurried and uncertain step, men pointed, and said that that was Catiline. Yet he possessed extraordinary abilities, and a peculiar power of fascinating those with whom he wished to establish a friendly relation. He had already been prætor ( 67), and there was a large class, consisting principally of debauched young patricians and ruined military men, who looked forward eagerly to his election to the consulship.

Prevented, by a charge of extortion brought against him in his capacity of prætor, from becoming a candidate for the consulship of the year 65, Catiline came forward as candidate in the following year. Cicero was his rival; and the senators mustered in sufficient strength to return the orator. Enraged at his defeat, Catiline began to plot a seditious movement