But the Dean, though he calls Catiline infamous, and acknowledges the conspiracy, nevertheless give us ample proof of his sympathy with the conspirators, or rather of his strong feeling against Cicero.

Speaking of Catiline at a certain moment, he says that he "was not yet hunted down." He speaks of the "upstart Cicero," and plainly shows us that his heart is with the side which had been Caesar's.

Whether conspiracy or no conspiracy, whether with or without wholesale murder and rapine, a single master with a strong hand was the one remedy needed for Rome! The reader must understand that Cicero's one object in public life was to resist that lesson.
[186] Asconius, "In toga candida," reports that Fenestella, a writer of the time of Augustus, had declared that Cicero had defended Catiline; but Asconius gives his reasons for disbelieving the story.
[187] Cicero, however, declares that he has made a difference between traitors to their country and other criminals.

Pro P.Sulla, ca.

iii.: "Verum etiam quaedam contagio sceleris, si defendas eum, quem obstrictum esse patriae parricidio suspicere." Further on in the same oration, ca.vi., he explains that he had refused to defend Autronius because he had known Autronius to be a conspirator against his country.