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44Soon after, when a suit was instituted by the optimates against Manilius and the latter was striving to gain some delay in the matter, Cicero tried in every way to thwart him, and only after obstinate objection did he put off his case till the following day, offering as an excuse that the year was drawing to a close. 2He was enabled to do this by the fact that he was praetor and president of the court. Thereupon, when the crowd showed their displeasure, he entered their assembly, compelled to do so, as he claimed, by the tribunes, and after inveighing against the senate, promised to speak in support of Manilius. For this he fell into ill repute generally, and was called “turn-coat;” but a tumult that immediately arose prevented the court from being convened.
3Publius Paetus and Cornelius Sulla, a nephew of the great Sulla, who had been elected consuls and then convicted of bribery, had plotted to kill their accusers, Lucius Cotta and Lucius Torquatus, especially after the latter had also been convicted. 4Among others who had been suborned were Gnaeus Piso and also Lucius Catiline, a man of great audacity, who had sought the office himself and was angry on this account. They were unable, however, to accomplish anything because the plot was revealed beforehand and a body-guard given to Cotta and Torquatus by the senate. 5Indeed, a decree [would have been] passed against them, had not one of the tribunes opposed it. And when Piso even then continued to display his audacity, the senate, fearing he would cause some riot, sent him at once to Spain, ostensibly to hold some command or other; there he met his death at the hands of the natives whom he had wronged.
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