During the discussion he trembled at the consequences, and declared himself for an adjournment of their decision till they should have dealt with Catiline.

Murena, the other Consul elect, and Catulus, the Prince of the Senate,[209] spoke for death.
Tiberius Nero, grandfather of Tiberius the Emperor, made that proposition for adjournment to which Silanus gave way.

Then--or I should rather say in the course of the debate, for we do not know who else may have spoken--Caesar got up and made his proposition.

His purpose was to save the victims, but he knew well that, with such a spirit abroad as that existing in the Senate and the city, he could only do so not by absolving but by condemning.

Wicked as these men might be, abominably wicked it was, he said, for the Senate to think of their own dignity rather than of the enormity of the crime.