A mighty concourse had flowed together from all quarters of the city, and stood in dense masses in all the neighboring streets, and in the area of the temple, in hushed and anxious expectation.
The tribunes of the people, awed for once by the imminence of the peril, forgot to be factious.
Within the mighty building, there was dead silence—silence more eloquent than words.
For, to the wonder of all men, undismayed by detection, unrebuked by the horror and hate which frowned on him from every brow, Catiline had assumed his place on the benches of his order.
Not one, even of his most intimate associates, had dared to salute him; not one, even of the conspirators, had dared to recognize the manifest traitor.
As he assumed his place, the senators next to him had arisen and withdrawn from the infamous vicinity, some of them even shaking their gowns, as if to dissipate the contamination of his contact.
Alone he sat, therefore, with a wide vacant space around him—alone, in that crowded house—alone, yet proud, unrebuked, undaunted.
The eyes of every man in the vast assembly were riveted in fear, or hatred, or astonishment, on the set features and sullen scowling brow, of the arch conspirator.
Thus sat they, thus they gazed for ten minutes' space, and so deep was the all-absorbing interest, that none observed the Consul, who had arisen to his feet before the curule chair, until the great volume of his clear sonorous voice rolled over them, like the burst of sudden thunder amid the hush of nature which precedes it.
It was to no set form of words, to no premeditated speech, that he gave utterance; nor did he in the usual form address the Conscript Fathers.