was Aulus Fulvius, the son of a senator, whom, being arrested on his
journey, his father ordered to be put to death.[199] In Rome, at the
same time, Lentulus, in pursuance of Catiline's directions, was
endeavoring to gain over, by his own agency or that of others, all
whom he thought adapted, either by principles or circumstances, to
promote an insurrection; and not citizens only, but every description
of men who could be of any service in war.

XL. He accordingly commissioned one Publius Umbrenus to apply to
certain deputies of the Allobroges,[200] and to lead them, if he
could, to a participation in the war; supposing that as they were
nationally and individually involved in debt, and as the Gauls were
naturally warlike, they might easily be drawn into such an enterprise.
Umbrenus, as he had traded in Gaul, was known to most of the chief men
there, and personally acquainted with them; and consequently, without
loss of time, as soon as he noticed the deputies in the Forum, he
asked them, after making a few inquiries about the state of their
country, and affecting to commiserate its fallen condition, "what
termination they expected to such calamities?" When he found that they
complained of the rapacity of the magistrates, inveighed against the
senate for not affording them relief, and looked to death as the only
remedy for their sufferings, "Yet I," said he, "if you will but act as
men, will show you a method by which you may escape these pressing
difficulties." When he had said this, the Allobroges, animated with
the highest hopes, besought Umbrenus to take compassion on them;
saying that there was nothing so disagreeable or difficult, which they
would not most gladly perform, if it would but free their country from
debt. He then conducted them to the house of Decimus Brutus, which was
close to the Forum, and, on account of Sempronia, not unsuitable to
his purpose, as Brutus was then absent from Rome.[201] In order, too,