Lucius Sergius Catilina stood for the consulship three times by 63 BC and was rejected every time. Only after his defeat at the consular comitia in 63 did he start planning a coup to seize the consulship which had been denied to him. He enlisted into his circle a number of disreputable senators including Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura, a former consul ejected from the senate for immorality in 70 BC. Gaius Cornelius Cethegus joined as a Sertorian sympathiser with few prospects for promotion. Publius Autronius Paetus was a winning consular candidate in the elections of 66 BC who had his victory annulled and senate seat stripped after conviction on bribery charges. Other malcontents who had expected but had been denied advancement joined the conspiracy such as Lucius Cassius Longinus, who had been praetor in 66 and defeated in consular elections in 63 BC. Non-senatorial men also filled the ranks. The classicist Erich Gruen describes these men as mixed, adding that single-minded purpose cannot readily be ascribed to them. Some were frustrated candidates for municipal elections, some may have been motivated by debts, some sought profit in the chaos, and others were members of declining aristocratic families like Catiline. What allowed them to raise a meaningful threat to the state was their mobilisation of men displaced by Sulla's civil war. Joining those dispossessed in the Sullan proscriptions were landed Sullan veterans who expected monetary rewards and had fallen into debt after poor harvests. The ancient sources generally credit their involvement in the conspiracy with large debts that Catiline's putsch supposedly would have erased. But scholars reject this as sole cause and consider the shame of unmet political ambitions indispensable. None of the ancient sources except Dio mention any connection between Catiline and land reform. It is likely Dio is wrong; if Catiline had advocated for land reform Cicero would likely have alluded to it. Three of the conspirators had been repulsed at the consular elections. Another three had been ejected from the senate. Others found themselves unable to attain the same offices as their ancestors. The defeat of the Rullan land reform bill early in 63 BC also must have stoked resentment. The bill would have confirmed Sullan settlers on their land and allowed them to sell it to the state. It would have distributed new lands to poor dispossessed citizens. The failure of the relief bill at Rome contributed to the uprising's support among the poor. This was coupled with a general financial and economic crisis stretching back at least to the First Mithridatic War, a quarter-century earlier. With renewed demand for capital in the aftermath of stability secured by Pompey's victory in the Third Mithridatic War moneylenders would have called in debts and increased interest rates driving men into bankruptcy.