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30In this way new consuls were chosen, and Catiline no longer directed his plot in secret or against Cicero and his adherents only, but against the whole commonwealth. 2He assembled from Rome itself the lowest characters and such as were always eager for a revolution and as many as possible of the allies, by promising them the cancelling of debts, distribution of lands, and everything else by which he was most likely to tempt them. 3Upon the foremost and most powerful of them, including Antonius the consul, he imposed the obligation of taking a monstrous oath. For he sacrificed a boy, and after administering the oath over his vitals, ate these in company with the others. 4Those who coöperated with him most closely were: in Rome, the consul and Publius Lentulus, who, after his consulship, had been expelled from the senate and was now serving as praetor, in order to gain senatorial rank again; at Faesulae, where the men of his party were collecting, 5one Gaius Manlius, who was well-versed in warfare, having served among Sulla’s centurions, and also the greatest possible spendthrift. Certain it was that he had run through all that he had gained at that epoch, although a vast sum, by his evil practices, and was now eager for other similar exploits.
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