his army, and make provision for the war before the legions could be
raised, he set out in the dead of night, and with a few attendants, to
the camp of Manlius. But he left in charge to Lentulus and Cethegus,
and others of whose prompt determination he was assured, to strengthen
the interests of their party in every possible way, to forward the
plots against the consul, and to make arrangements for a massacre, for
firing the city, and for other destructive operations of war;
promising that he himself would shortly advance on the city with a
large army.

During the course of these proceedings at Rome, Caius Manlius
dispatched some of his followers as deputies to Quintus Marcius Rex,
with directions to address him[164] to the following effect:

XXXIII. "We call gods and men to witness, general, that we have taken
up arms neither to injure our country, nor to occasion peril to any
one, but to defend our own persons from harm; who, wretched and in
want, have been deprived most of us, of our homes, and all of us of
our character and property, by the oppression and cruelty of usurers;
nor has any one of us been allowed, according to the usage of our
ancestors, to have the benefit of the law,[165] or, when our property
was lost to keep our persons free. Such has been the inhumanity of the
usurers and of the praetor.[166]

Often have your forefathers, taking compassion on the commonalty at
Rome, relieved their distress by decrees;[167] and very lately, within
our own memory, silver, by reason of the pressure of debt, and with
the consent of all respectable citizens, was paid with brass.[168]

Often too, we must own, have the commonalty themselves, driven by