prosecution is clear, only Orosius mentions Catiline's prosecution. Conviction would have led to execution for sacrilege. Catiline's friend Catulus – probably the president of the court and definitely one of the pontiffs – and other former consuls rallied to help Fabia, and possibly Catiline if he too was prosecuted, securing their acquittals. Catiline and Cicero "must have been relieved"; Catiline, for his part, regarded himself in Catulus' debt. Attempts at the consulship Catiline served as praetor some time before 68 BC; T. R. S. Broughton in Magistrates of the Roman Republic dates the praetorship exactly to 68 BC. He then served as propraetorian governor of Africa for two years (67–66 BC). Some time in the mid-60s BC, Catiline married the wealthy and beautiful Aurelia Orestilla, daughter of the consul of 71 BC, Gnaeus Aufidius Orestes; this was his second marriage. Sallust relates that he did so not out of money, but only due to her good looks, something which Romans believed to be discreditable. Cicero later claimed in his Catilinarians that Catiline murdered his first wife and Orestilla's son to make way for the match; he also claimed in In toga candida that Orestilla was Catiline's own illegitimate daughter. Cicero's allegations "cannot be taken at face value and reveal more about typical themes and slanders found in Roman invective than they do about Catiline's domestic history". Elections of 66 BC and trial Upon his return to Rome in 66 BC, embassies from Africa protested his maladministration. Catiline also attempted to stand for the consulship, but his candidacy was rejected by the presiding magistrate. Sallust and Cicero attribute the rejection to an imminent extortion trial, but this decision may have been made in terms of the contested elections for the consulship of 65 BC: before Catiline's return to Rome, the first consular elections were held but both men elected were deposed after they were both convicted of bribery; the second elections, after Catiline's return, were held with the same candidates – the two convicts excepted – returning two different consuls. Catiline's candidacy could have been rejected not due to expectations of an extortion trial, but rather for the mere fact that he was not a candidate in the first election. Following the elections, early in 65 BC, the ancient sources give contradictory descriptions of what is called a "First Catilinarian conspiracy" in which Catiline (except in Suetonius' narrative) conspired with the