in his decision-making. Many of the senatorial members of the conspiracy were men who had been ejected from the senate for immorality, corruption, or seen their careers stall out (especially in attempts to reach the consulship). The men who joined Manlius' rebellion were largely two groups: poor farmers who had been dispossessed by Sulla's confiscations after the civil war and ruined Sullan veterans seeking more riches. Cicero, in his invectives, naturally focused on the ruined Sullan veterans, who were unpopular; but at the end, Catiline likely kept only the support of the dispossessed Etruscans who had "nowhere else to go". Altogether, these men had mixed backgrounds and no "single-minded purpose [can] readily be ascribed" to them. Flight from the city While the consuls fortified central Italy, reports also filtered in of slave revolts in the south. Two generals who were waiting for their triumphs to be approved were then dispatched with men to garrison the northern approaches to Rome and southern Italy. Catiline remained in Rome, as "there was as yet no evidence to incriminate him... the letters sent to Crassus had been anonymous, and so proved nothing". On 6 November, Catiline held a secret meeting in Rome at the house of Marcus Porcius Laeca where he planned to go to Manlius' army, for other members of the conspiracy to take charge of the nascent revolts elsewhere in Italy, for conspirators in Rome to set fires in the city, and for two specific conspirators to assassinate Cicero the next morning. Cicero exaggerates Catiline's supposed intention to raze the city as a means to turn the urban population against him – a story further embellished in Plutarch – it is more likely that Catiline's fires were intended only to create exploitable confusion for his army. The next day, on 7 November, the assassins found Cicero's house shut against them and Cicero convened the senate later that day at the Temple of Jupiter Stator reporting the threat to his life and then delivering the First Catilinarian denouncing Catiline. Catiline, who was already planning to leave the city, offered to go into exile if the senate would so decree. After Cicero refused to bring up such a motion, Catiline protested his innocence and insulted Cicero's ancestry, calling him a "squatter". He thereafter left the city, claiming that he was going into voluntary exile at Massilia "to spare his country a civil war". On