The first step towards the revolution projected by the leaders of the democracy was thus to be the overthrow of the existing government by means of an insurrection primarily instigated in Rome by democratic conspirators.  The moral condition of the lowest as of the highest ranks of society in the capital presented the materials for this purpose in lamentable abundance.  We need not here repeat what was the character of the free and the servile proletariate of the capital.  The significant saying was already heard, that only the poor man was qualified to represent the poor; the idea was thus suggested, that the mass of the poor might constitute itself an independent power as well as the oligarchy of the rich, and instead of allowing itself to be tyrannized over, might perhaps in its own turn play the tyrant.  But even in the circles of the young men of rank similar ideas found an echo.  The fashionable life of the capital shattered not merely the fortunes of men, but also their vigour of body and mind.  That elegant world of fragrant ringlets, of fashionable mustachios and ruffles—­merry as were its doings in the dance and with the harp, and early and late at the wine-cup—­yet concealed in its bosom an alarming abyss of moral and economic ruin, of well or ill concealed despair, and frantic or knavish resolves.  These circles sighed without disguise for a return of the time of Cinna with its proscriptions and confiscations and its annihilation of account-books for debt; there were people enough, including not a few of no mean descent and unusual abilities, who only waited the signal to fall like a gang of robbers on civil society and to recruit by pillage the fortune which they had squandered.  Where a band gathers, leaders are not wanting; and in this case the men were soon found who were fitted to be captains of banditti.

Catalina

The late praetor Lucius Catilina, and the quaestor Gnaeus Piso, were distinguished among their fellows not merely by their genteel birth and their superior rank.  They had broken down the bridge completely behind them, and impressed their accomplices by their dissoluteness quite as much as by their talents.  Catilina especially was one of the most wicked men in that wicked age.  His villanies belong to the records of crime, not to history; but his very outward appearance—­the pale countenance, the wild glance, the gait by turns sluggish and hurried—­betrayed his dismal past.  He possessed in a high degree the qualities which are required in the leader of such a band—­ the faculty of enjoying all pleasures and of bearing all privations, courage, military talent, knowledge of men, the energy of a felon, and that horrible mastery of vice, which knows how to bring the weak to fall and how to train the fallen to crime.