'I received word that Cicero planned to deliver a speech against me. I could hardly stay away, could I? I thought I could defend myself and show him up for a fool. That was my hubris, I suppose, thinking myself his match with words; now the gods have punished me for it.

'There was no formal speech. Cicero shouted; I shouted; the senators shouted me down. I found myself abandoned and sitting almost alone, except for a handful of those closest to me. I think you cannot know the shame of that, Gordianus, to be shunned by your colleagues in such a manner. I implored them to remember my name — Lucius Sergius Catilina. A Sergius was there at the side of Aeneas when he fled from burning Troy and made his way to Italy. We have been among the most respected families in Rome since her very beginnings. And who is Cicero? Who ever heard of the Tullius family from Arpinum, a town with one tavern and two pigsties? An interloper, an intruder, hardly better than a foreigner! An immigrant — that's what I called him to his face!'

'Strong words, Catilina.'

'Hardly strong enough, considering that he was threatening my life! "Why is such a man still alive?" — he said those very words to the Senate. He brought up instances in the distant past when the Senate put reformers to death, and mocked those present, saying they lacked the moral fibre to do the same. He noted the laws that prevent a consul or the Senate from executing a citizen, and declared that I stood outside those laws, a rebel and not a citizen any longer. He was inciting them to murder me! Failing that, he would see me exiled, along with all my supporters. Take your vermin and go, he said. Rid Rome of your pestilence and leave us in peace. Over and over, he made it clear that my choice was to flee the city or be murdered.

'Of course he couldn't resist repeating the most vicious and painful lies about me one more time, to my face and before all my colleagues. Again, the sneering allusions to my sexual depravity; again, the horrible insinuation that I killed my son. He intended to provoke me, to make me lose my head. I hate to admit that he succeeded. I began by calmly denying every charge he made, and ended by shouting at the top of my lungs — shouting to be heard above the jeering of my colleagues.

‘When Cicero insinuated that all his enemies should be herded into a segregated camp, I could stand no more. "Let every man's political views be written on his brow for all to see!" said Cicero. "Why?" I said. "Will it make it easier for you to choose which heads to lop off?"'

'At that, the inside of the chamber roared like the ocean in a storm But Cicero has trained his voice to carry above any noise that man or nature can contrive. "The time for punishment has come," he shouted. "The enemies of Jupiter, in whose temple we convene, will be rounded up and laid to sacrifice on his altar. We shall set them aflame, dead or alive — dead or alive!"

"There was such an uproar I was afraid for my life. I rose from my seat, put on the most brazen face I could manage, and strode towards the doors. "I am surrounded by foes," I shouted. "I am hounded to desperation. But I tell you this: if you raise a fire to consume me, I will put it out — not with water, but with demolition!" '

His voice was shaking with emotion. His eyes glittered. I had never seen him so stripped of his composure. Tongilius knelt beside him and laid a hand on his shoulder. We were silent for a long time. The flame needed to be rekindled, but no one moved.

At last I spoke. 'Are you telling me, Catilina, that you are completely innocent of conspiracy? That your secretive comings and goings, your alliance with all the discontents of the city, your military link with Manlius — that these things exist only in Cicero's feverish imaginings? Are you telling me that you have no intention of bringing down the state?'

His eyes reflected the firelight but somehow seemed to sparkle from within. 'I claim no false innocence. But I do say that my enemies have manipulated me into a position where no other option is open to me. I have always worked within the political system of the Roman state. I have suffered the indignities of spurious trials, I have made endless compromises with men like Caesar and Crassus; I have submitted myself to electoral campaigns of ferocious ugliness. Twice I have run for consul; twice the Optimates have engineered my defeat. No one can say that I looked to violent action until no legitimate recourse remained. The Republic is a shambles, a tottering pile of bricks about to fall, with the Optimates standing jealously on top. Who will bring it down? Who will pick up the pieces and refashion it to their choosing? Why should it not be me, and why should I not use whatever tools are called for?

'Yes, for some time I have contemplated the possibility of violence, but to say that I have a plot afoot is absurd. I have met in secret with friends; I have consulted with Manlius about the readiness and loyalty of his troops. Call it conspiracy if you want, but so far it has remained a vague expression of a shared will for creating a change, with no consensus about how to do it. Manlius is eager to use his veterans. Lentulus favours inciting slaves to revolt, an insanity I utterly reject. Cethegus, always hotheaded, would resort to burning Rome.' He shook his head. 'Do you know what my dream is? I think of those ancient revolts of the plebeians, when to claim their rights they banded together and simply walked out of Rome, leaving the patricians to cope for themselves and ultimately to seek compromise. If I could draw all the discontented to me — the poor, the indebted, the powerless — and bring the Optimates to their knees without shedding a drop of blood, I would do it. But that is only a sentimental folly; the Optimates will never give up a shred of their power. The leaders of a peaceful withdrawal would be massacred and their followers enslaved.

'It's Cicero who has forced matters to a crisis. Where there was no evidence of a plot, he invented evidence. Where my colleagues and I have procrastinated, he has forced us to take a stand. He has set the stakes; he must die, or we must die, and there can be no middle ground. He provokes a premature conflict, for his own purposes. He thinks that if he can destroy us now, during his term as consul, he will have achieved true greatness; the people will love him, the Optimates will kiss his feet, he will be the saviour of Rome.

‘Yet even now I waver. From his speech, from his repeated demands that I go into exile, I wonder if Cicero would be satisfied with that. Would that sate his appetite for exercising power? Would that be a great enough achievement for the New Man from Arpinum, to have saved Rome from a conspiracy that never existed and to have driven a dangerous rebel into exile before he ever had a chance to rebel!'

'Will you go into exile, then?' said Meto, drawing closer to the fire. 'Or will you take up arms?'

'Exile…' said Catilina, not as an answer but as if he were testing the quality of the word. 'Before I left Rome, I dispatched letters to several men of rank — former consuls, patricians, magistrates. I told them that I was leaving for Massilia, on the southern coast of Gaul — not as a guilty man fleeing justice, but as a lover of peace eager to avoid civil strife and no longer able to defend myself against persecution and trumped-up charges. I could go to Massilia — if they allow it, if they don't block the passes to Gaul. To take up arms — I'm not ready, I'm still uncertain. Cicero has pressed the crisis to his own advantage; he has made a fugitive of me against my will. He wants me to take desperate action, and in doing so, stumble.'

'And what of your wife?' I said.

He turned his face so that the fire no longer lit it. 'Aurelia and her daughter I commended to the care of Quintus Catulus. He is one of the staunchest of the Optimates, but an honest man. She'll be safe with him, whatever happens; he will not harm her, and no one could ever accuse him of colluding with me.'