To this meeting Catiline, a member in right of having filled high offices of state, himself ventured to come.  A tall, stalwart man, manifestly of great power of body and mind, but with a face pale and wasted by excess, and his eyes haggard and bloodshot, he sat alone in the midst of a crowded house.  No man had greeted him when he entered, and when he took his place on the benches allotted to senators who had filled the office of consul, all shrank from him.  Then Cicero rose in his place.  He turned directly and addressed his adversary.  “How long, Catiline,” he cried, “will you abuse our patience?” How had he dared to come to that meeting?  Was it not enough for him to know how all the city was on its guard against him; how his fellow-senators shrank from him as men shrink from a pestilence?  If he was still alive, he owed it to the forbearance of those against whom he plotted; and this forbearance would last so long, and so long only, as to allow every one to be convinced of his guilt.  For the present, he was suffered to live, but to live guarded and watched and incapable of mischief.  Then the speaker related every detail of the conspiracy.  He knew not only every thing that the accomplices had intended to do, but the very days that had been fixed for doing it.  Overwhelmed by this knowledge of his plans, Catiline scarcely attempted a defense.  He said in a humble voice, “Do not think, Fathers, that I, a noble of Rome, I who have done myself, whose ancestors have done much good to this city, wish to see it in ruins, while this consul, a mere lodger in the place, would save it.”  He would have said more, but the whole assembly burst into cries of “Traitor!  Traitor!” and drowned his voice.  “My enemies,” he cried, “are driving me to destruction.  But look! if you set my house on fire, I will put it out with a general ruin.”  And he rushed out of the Senate.

Nothing, he saw, could be done in Rome; every point was guarded against him.  Late that same night he left the city, committing the management of affairs to Cethegus and Lentulus, and promising to return before long with an army at his back.  Halting awhile on his road, he wrote letters to some of the chief senators, in which he declared that for the sake of the public peace he should give up the struggle with his enemies and quietly retire to Marseilles.  What he really did was to make his way to the camp of Manlius, where he assumed the usual state of a regular military command.  The Senate, on hearing of these doings, declared him to be an outlaw.  The consuls were to raise an army; Antonius was to march against the enemy, and Cicero to protect the city.