to declare himself a candidate within the legitimate number of
days.[112] There was at that time, too, a young patrician of the most
daring spirit, needy and discontented, named Cneius Piso,[113] whom
poverty and vicious principles instigated to disturb the government.
Catiline and Autronius,[114] having concerted measures with this Piso,
prepared to assassinate the consuls, Lucius Cotta and Lucius Torquatus,
in the Capitol, on the first of January,[115] when they, having seized
on the fasces, were to send Piso with an army to take possession of the
two Spains.[116] But their design being discovered, they postponed the
assassination to the fifth of February; when they meditated the
destruction, not of the consuls only, but of most of the senate. And had
not Catiline, who was in front of the senate-house, been too hasty to
give the signal to his associates, there would that day have been
perpetrated the most atrocious outrage since the city of Rome was
founded. But as the armed conspirators had not yet assembled in
sufficient numbers, the want of force frustrated the design.

XIX. Some time afterward, Piso was sent as quaestor, with Praetorian
authority, into Hither Spain; Crassus promoting the appointment,
because he knew him to be a bitter enemy to Cneius Pompey. Nor were
the senate, indeed, unwilling[117] to grant him the province; for they
wished so infamous a character to be removed from the seat of
government; and many worthy men, at the same time, thought that there
was some security in him against the power of Pompey, which was then
becoming formidable. But this Piso, on his march toward his province,
was murdered by some Spanish cavalry whom he had in his army. These
barbarians, as some say, had been unable to endure his unjust,
haughty, and cruel orders; but others assert that this body of
cavalry, being old and trusty adherents of Pompey, attacked Piso at
his instigation; since the Spaniards, they observed, had never before