[85] Desolate his tortured spirit—Mentem exciteam vastabat. "Conscience desolates the mind, when it deprives it of its proper power and tranquillity, and introduces into it perpetual disquietude." Cortius. Many editions have vexabat.
[86] XVI. He furnished false witnesses, etc. Testis signatoresque falsos commodare. "If any one wanted any such character, Catiline was ready to supply him from among his troop."Bernouf.
[87] Inoffensive persons, etc.—Insontes, sicuti sontes. Most translators have rendered these words "innocent" and "guilty," terms which suggest nothing satisfactory to the English reader. The insontes are those who had given Catiline no cause of offens; the sontes those who had in some way incurred his displeasure, or become objects of his rapacity.
[88] Veterans of Sylla, etc.—Elsewhere called the colonists of Sylla; men to whom Sylla had given large tracts of land as rewards for their services, but who, having lived extravagantly, had fallen into such debt and distress, that, as Cicero said, nothing could relieve them but the resurrection of Sylla from the dead. Cic. ii. Orat. in Cat.
[89] Pompey was fighting in a distant part of the world—In extremis terris. Pompey was then conducting the war against Mithridates and Tigranes, in Pontus and Armenia.
[90] The senate was wholly off its guard—Senatus nihil sane intentus. The senate was regardless, and unsuspicious of any danger.
[91] XVII. Lucius Caesar—He was a relation of Julius Caesar; and his sister was the wife of M. Antonius, the orator, and mother of Mark Antony, the triumvir.
[92] Publius Lentulus Sura—He was of the same family with Sylla, that of the Cornelii. He had filled the office of consul, but his conduct had been afterward so profligate, that the censors expelled him from the senate. To enable him to resume his seat, he had obtained, as a qualification, the office of praetor, which he held at the time of the conspiracy. He was called Sura, because, when he had squandered the public money in his quaestorship, and was called to account by Sylla for his dishonesty, he declined to make any defense, but said, "I present you the calf of my leg (sura);" alluding to a custom among boys playing at ball, of inflicting a certain number of strokes on the leg of an unsuccessful player. Plutarch, Life of Cicero, c.17.
[93] Publius Autronius—He had been a companion of Cicero in his boyhood, and his colleague in the quaestorship. He was banished in the year after the conspiracy, together with Cassius, Laeca, Vargunteius, Servius Sylla, and Caius Cornelius, under the Plautian law. De Brosses.
[94] Lucius Cassius Longinus.—He had been a competitor with Cicero for the consulship. Ascon. Ped., in Cic. Orat. in Tog. Cand. His corpulence was such that Cassius's fat (Cassii adeps) became proverbial. Cic. Orat. in Catil., iii. 7.