♪ Narrator: Caesar's brazen wooing of the people has angered conservative optimates.

So, when, just a few months later, a conspiracy to violently overthrow the Senate comes to light, Caesar is dangerously exposed.

Malik: In the same year as we get a new pontifex maximus, we also have a conspiracy in Rome known as the Catiline Conspiracy.

And this rocks the political establishment.

A man named Lucius Sergius Catilina allies himself with those who are disenfranchised, the poor in Rome who do have resentment against the Senate, and decides that, actually, revolution and the overthrow of the Senate is the way forward.

Narrator: Rumors begin to circulate that Caesar may have had a hand in the plot.

Caesar may be increasingly popular with the people, but that, of course, just means that his rivals in the Senate are watching him with ever greater suspicion.

And those who want to thwart his rise are, therefore, unsurprisingly, very, very keen to implicate him in the coup.

♪ Narrator: The conspirators are betrayed before they can act.

Five senators, one a former consul, are arrested and await their fate.

The current consuls want to send a clear message-- execute the conspirators without trial.

Holland: Caesar knows that his enemies are trying to tar him as someone who perhaps had been taking part in the conspiracy.

So, by taking part in the debate, Caesar is repudiating that.

This is an opportunity for him to sway the Senate, and he's not going to let it go to waste.