In the mean time, Manlius was in Etruria, stirring up the populace,
who, both from poverty, and from resentment for their injuries (for,
under the tyranny of Sylla, they had lost their lands and other
property) were eager for a revolution. He also attached to himself all
sorts of marauders, who were numerous in those parts, and some of
Sylla's colonists, whose dissipation and extravagance had exhausted
their enormous plunder.

XXIX. When these proceedings were reported to Cicero, he, being
alarmed at the twofold danger, since he could no longer secure the
city against treachery by his private efforts, nor could gain
satisfactory intelligence of the magnitude or intentions of the army
of Manlius, laid the matter, which was already a subject of discussion
among the people, before the senate. The senate, accordingly, as is
usual in any perilous emergency, decreed that THE CONSULS SHOULD MAKE
IT THEIR CARE THAT THE COMMONWEALTH SHOULD RECEIVE NO INJURY. This is
the greatest power which, according to the practice at Rome, is
granted[149] by the senate to the magistrate, and which authorizes him
to raise troops; to make war; to assume unlimited control over the
allies and the citizens; to take the chief command and jurisdiction at
home and in the field; rights which, without an order of the people,
the consul is not permitted to exercise.

XXX. A few days afterward, Lucius Saenius, a senator, read to the
senate a letter, which, he said, he had received from Faesulae, and in
which, it was stated that Caius Manlius, with a large force, had taken
the field by the 27th of October.[150] Others at the same time, as is
not uncommon in such a crisis, spread reports of omens and prodigies;
others of meetings being held, of arms being transported, and of
insurrections of the slaves at Capua and in Apulia. In consequence of