Читать книгу Yale Classics - Roman Classical Literature - Луций Анней Сенека - Страница 444

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In the consulship of L. Tullus and M. Lepidus, P. Autronius and P. Sylla, who were chosen to succeed them, had been prosecuted for bribery at elections and punished.13 Not long after Catiline was likewise convicted of bribery, and hindered from suing for the consulship, because he could not declare himself a candidate within the limited time. At this time, too, Cn. Piso, a young nobleman, extremely bold, indigent, and factious, was instigated by his poverty and depraved morals to raise commotions in the state. Catiline, Autronius, and he, entering into a combination about the fifth of December, determined to murder the consuls L. Torquatus and L. Cotta in the capitol, on the first of January: on which Catiline and Autronius were to seize the consulship, and send Piso with an army to take possession of both the Spains. But their design being discovered, they put off the assassination plot to the fifth of February; at which time they proposed not only to murder the consuls, but likewise most of the senators. And if Catiline had not been too forward in giving the signal to his associates, before the senate-house, there had been that day the most bloody massacre Rome had ever seen. But as no great number of the conspirators had yet got together, the scheme was frustrated.