Note 12 — CICERO AGAINST CATILINE
Reading edition
: compressi—copiis: on the day of the consular elections, we are told by Plutarch, Cicero put on a coat of mail and was attended by the chief men of Rome and a great number of youths to the Campus Martius. He there threw off his toga and displayed his coat of mail to show the danger to which he was exposed. The people were so angry with Catiline that they chose Murena and Silanus as consuls.