I have already shown how he declares in one part of his narrative that the common people as a body were with Catiline, and have attempted to explain what was meant by that expression.

In another, in an earlier chapter, he says "that the State," meaning the city, "was disturbed by all this, and its appearance changed.[198] Instead of the joy and ease which had lately prevailed, the effect of the long peace, a sudden sadness fell upon every one." I quote the passage because that other passage has been taken as proving the popularity of Catiline.

There can, I think, be no doubt that the population of Rome was, as a body, afraid of Catiline.

The city was to be burnt down, the Consuls and the Senate were to be murdered, debts were to be wiped out, slaves were probably to be encouraged against their masters.

The "permota civitas" and the "cuncta plebes," of which Sallust speaks, mean that all the "householders" were disturbed, and that all the "roughs" were eager with revolutionary hopes.
On the 8th of November, the day after that on which the Consul was to have been murdered in his own house, he called a special meeting of the Senate in the temple of Jupiter Stator.