his departure, he sent a letter to his old friend and ally Quintus Lutatius Catulus Capitolinus, which Sallust copied into Bellum Catilinae. In the letter, Catiline defends himself as an injured party who took up the cause of the less fortunate in accordance with his patrician forebears' custom; he vehemently denies that he goes into exile due to his debts and commits his wife Orestilla to Catulus' care. He left the city on the road to Massilia, but in Etruria, he went to a weapons cache before diverting for Faesulae where he met up with Manlius' forces. Upon his arrival, he proclaimed himself consul and adopted consular regalia. When news of this reached Rome, the senate declared Catiline and Manlius hostes (public enemies) and dispatched Antonius at the head of an army to subdue him. Death In late November, Antonius' forces approached from the south. He decamped from Faesulae and moved near the mountains but remained close enough to the town to be in striking distance. When Antonius' forces arrived in the vicinity of the town, he avoided battle. Catiline's coconspirators in Rome had been caught out by Cicero with the aid of some Gallic envoys. After a fierce senate debate, they were executed without trial on 5 December. When news of their death arrived to Catiline's camp, much of his army melted away, leaving him with perhaps a bit more than three thousand men. Hoping to escape into Gaul, his escape from Italy was blocked when Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer – proconsul in Cisalpine Gaul – garrisoned the Apennine passes near Bononia. Antonius kept his men relatively docile near Faesulae, but after he received reinforcements from then-quaestor Publius Sestius in the last days of December, he moved out. Catiline, for his part, seeing his escape blocked, turned south to face Antonius, perhaps believing that Antonius would not fight as hard. They met at Pistoria, modern day Pistoia. Descending from the heights, he offered battle to Antonius' army, possibly on 3 January 62 BC. On the day of the battle, Antonius gave operational command to Marcus Petreius (Sallust claims he was stricken with gout), an experienced lieutenant, who broke through the Catilinarian centre with the praetorian cohort, forcing Catiline's men to flight. Catiline and his diehard supporters fought bravely and were annihilated: "they were desperate men who did not wish to survive their defeat". Sallust's account reads: Legacy In Roman