Cicero, on that sitting in the Senate, had been specially anxious to make Catiline understand that he knew privately every circumstance of the plot.

Throughout the whole conspiracy his object was not to take Catiline, but to drive him out of Rome.

If the people could be stirred up to kill him in their wrath, that might be well; in that way there might be an end of all the trouble.

But if that did not come to pass, then it would be best to make the city unbearable to the conspirators.

If they could be driven out, they must either take themselves to foreign parts and be dispersed, or must else fight and assuredly be conquered.