University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.
THE ORATION.

Cicero.

The Senate was assembled in the great temple on the
Palatine, built on the spot where Jupiter, thence hailed as
Stator, had stayed the tide of flight, and sent the rallied
Romans back to a glorious triumph.

A cohort was stationed on the brow of the hill, its spear-heads
glancing in the early sunshine.

The Roman knights, wearing their swords openly, and
clad in their girded tunics only, mustered around the steps
which led to the colonnade and doors of the temple, a voluntary
guard to the good consul.

A mighty concourse had flowed together from all quarters
of the city, and stood in dense masses in all the neighboring
streets, and in the area of the temple, in hushed
and anxious expectation.

The tribunes of the people, awed for once by the imminence
of the peril, forgot to be factious.

Within the mighty building, there was dead silence—
silence more eloquent than words.

For, to the wonder of all men, undismayed by detection,
unrebuked by the horror and hate which frowned on him
from every brow, Catiline had assumed his place on the
benches of his order.

Not one, even of his most intimate associates, had dared
to salute him; not one, even of the conspirators, had dared
to recognize the manifest traitor.

As he assumed his place, the senators next to him >had
arisen and withdrawn from the infamous vicinity, some of
them even shaking their gowns, as if to dissipate the contamination
of his contact.

Alone he sat, therefore, with a wide vacant space around
him—alone, in that crowded house—alone, yet proud, unrebuked,
undaunted.

The eyes of every man in the vast assembly were riveted
in fear, or hatred, or astonishment, on the set features and
sullen scowling brow, of the arch conspirator.

Thus sat they, thus they gazed for ten minutes' space,
and so deep was the all-absorbing interest, that none observed
the Consul, who had arisen to his feet before the
curule chair, until the great volume of his clear sonorous
voice rolled over them, like the burst of sudden thunder
amid the hush of nature which precedes it.

It was to no set form of words, to no premeditated
speech, that he gave utterance; nor did he in the usual
form address the Conscript Fathers.

With his form drawn to its fullest height, his arm out-stretched
as if it was about to launch the thunderbolt, he
hurled his impassioned indignation against the fearless culprit.

“Until how long, O Catiline, wilt thou abuse our patience?
Until how long, too, will thy frantic fury baffle
us? Unto what extremity will thy unbridled insolence
display itself? Do the nocturnal guards upon the Palatine
nothing dismay you, nothing the watches through the
city, nothing the terrors of the people, nothing the concourse
hitherward of all good citizens, nothing this most
secure place for the senate's convocation, nothing the eyes
and faces of all these?” And at the words, he waved both
arms slowly around, pointing the features and expression
of every senator, filled with awe and aversion.

“Dost thou not feel that all thy plots are manifest? Not
see that thy conspiracy was grasped irresistibly, so soon as
it was known thoroughly to all these? Which of us dost
thou imagine ignorant of what thou didst, where thou wert,
whom thou didst convoke, what resolution thou didst take
last night, and the night yet preceding? Oh! ye changed
Times! Oh, ye degenerate customs! The Senate comprehends
these things, the Consul sees them! Yet this

man lives! Lives, did I say? Yea, indeed, comes into
the Senate, bears a part in the public councils, marks out
with his eyes and selects every one of us for slaughter.
But we, strenuous brave men, imagine that we do our duty
to the state, so long as we escape the frenzy, the daggers
of that villain. Long since it had been right, Catiline, that
thou shouldst have been led to death by the Consul's mandate—Long
since should that doom have been turned upon
thyself, which thou hast been so long devising for all of
us here present. Do I err, saying this? or did that most
illustrious man, Publius Scipio, pontifex maximus, when
in no magisterial office, take off Tiberius Gracchus, for
merely disturbing the established order of the state? And
shall we, Consuls, endure Catiline aiming to devastate the
world with massacre and conflagration? For I omit to
state, as too ancient precedents, how Caius Servilius Ahala
slew with his own hand Spurius Melius, when plotting revolution!
There was, there was, of old, that energy of
virtue in this commonwealth, that brave men hedged the
traitorous citizen about with heavier penalties than the
most deadly foe! We hold a powerful and weighty decree
of the Senate against thee, O Catiline. Neither the
counsel nor the sanction of this order have been wanting
to the republic. We, we, I say it openly, we Consuls are
wanting in our duty.

“The Senate decreed once, that Lucius Opimius, then
Consul, should see THAT THE REPUBLIC TOOK NO HARM;
not one night intervened. Caius Gracchus was slain on
mere suspicions of sedition, the son of a most noble father,
most noble grandfather, most noble ancestry. Marcus Fulvius,
a consular, was slain with both his children. By a
like decree of the Senate, the charge of the republic was
committed to Caius Marius and Lucius Valerius, the Consuls—did
the republic's vengeance delay the death of Lucius
Saterninus, a tribune of the people, of Caius Servilius,
a prætor, even a single day? And yet, we Consuls,
suffer the edge of this authority to be blunted, until the
twentieth day. For we have such a decree of the Senate,
but hidden in the scroll which contains it, as a sword undrawn
in its scabbard. By which decree it were right, O
Catiline, that thou shouldst have been slaughtered on the
instant. Thou livest; and livest not to lay aside, but to

confirm and strengthen thine audacity. I desire, O Conscript
fathers, to be merciful; I desire, too, in such jeopardy
of the republic, not to seem culpably neglectful. Yet I
condemn myself of inability, of utter weakness. There
is a camp in Italy! hostile to the republic, in the defiles
that open on Etruria! Daily the numbers of the foe are
increasing! And yet the general of that camp, the leader
of that foe, we see within the walls, aye, even in the
Senate, day by day, plotting some intestine blow against
the state. Were I to order thee to be arrested, to be slain
now, O Catiline, I should have cause, I think, to dread the
reproaches of all good citizens, for having stricken thee too
late, rather than that of one, for having stricken thee too severely.
And yet, that which should have been done long
ago, I am not yet for a certain reason persuaded to do now.
Then—then at length—will I slay thee, when there is not
a man so base, so desperately wicked, so like to thee in character,
but he shall own thy slaying just. So long as there
shall be one man, who dares to defend thee, thou shalt
live. And thou shalt live, as now thou livest, beset on every
side by numerous, and steady guards, so that thou canst
not even stir against the commonwealth. The eyes moreover,
and the ears of many, even as heretofore, shall spy
thee out at unawares, and mount guard on thee in private.

“For what is there, Catiline, which thou now canst expect
more, if neither night with all its darkness, could conceal
thy unholy meetings, nor even the most private house
contain within its walls the voice of thy conspiracy? If
all thy deeds shine forth, burst into public view? Change
now that hideous purpose, take me along as thy adviser,
forget thy schemes of massacre, of conflagration. Thou
art hemmed in on every side. Thy every council is more
clear to me than day; and these thou canst now review
with me. Dost thou remember, how I stated in the Senate,
on the twelfth day before the Calends of November, (1)
that Caius Manlius, the satellite and co-minister of thy
audacity, would be in arms on a given day, which day
would be the sixth (2) before the Calends of November!—Did
I err, Catiline, not in the fact, so great as it
was, so atrocious, so incredible, but, what is much more

wondrous, in the very day? Again I told thee in the
Senate, that thou hadst conspired to slay the first men of
the state, on the fifth (1) day before the Calends of November,
when many leading men of Rome quitted the city,
not so much to preserve their lives, as to mar thy councils.
Canst thou deny that thou wert hemmed in on that day by
my guards, and hindered by my vigilance from stirring thy
hand against the state, when, frustrate by the departure of
the rest, thou saidst that our blood, ours who had remained
behind, would satisfy thee? What? When thou wert so
confident of seizing Præneste, by nocturnal escalade,
upon the very (2) Calends of November, didst thou not
feel that it was by my order that colony was garrisoned,
guarded, watched, impregnable?—Thou doest nothing,
plottest nothing, thinkest nothing which I shall not—I say
not—hear—but shall not see, shall not conspicuously comprehend.

“Review with me now, the transactions of the night before
the last, so shalt thou understand that I watch far more
vigilantly for the safety, than thou for the destruction of
the state. I say that on that former night, (3) thou didst
go to the street of the Scythemakers, I will speak plainly,
to the house of Marcus Læca; that thou didst meet there
many of thy associates in crime and madness. Wilt thou
dare to deny it? Why so silent? If thou deniest, I will
prove it. For I see some of those here, here in the Senate,
who were with thee. Oh! ye immortal Gods! in what
region of the earth do we dwell? in what city do we live?
of what republic are we citizens? Here! they are here,
in the midst of us, Conscript Fathers, here in this council,
the most sacred, the most solemn of the universal world,
who are planning the slaughter of myself, the slaughter of
you all, planning the ruin of this city, and therein the ruin
of the world. I the consul, see these men, and ask their
opinions on state matters. Nay, those whom it were but
justice to slaughter with the sword, I refrain as yet from
wounding with a word. Thou wert therefore in the house
of Læca, on that night, O Catiline. Thou didst allot the
districts of Italy; thou didst determine whither each one
of thy followers should set forth; thou didst choose whom

thou wouldst lead along with thee, whom leave behind;
thou didst assign the wards of the city for conflagration;
thou didst assert that ere long thou wouldst go forth in person;
thou saidst there was but one cause why thou shouldst
yet delay a little, namely, that I was alive. Two Roman
knights were found, who offered themselves to liberate thee
from that care, and promised that they would butcher me,
that very night, a little before daylight, in my own bed. Of
all these things I was aware, when your assembly was
scarce yet broken up. I strengthened my house, and guarded
it with an unwonted garrison. I refused admittance
to those whom thou hadst sent to salute me, when they
arrived; even as I had predicted to many eminent men
that they would arrive, and at that very time.

“Since then these things stand thus, O Catiline, proceed
as thou hast begun; depart when thou wilt from the city;
the gates are open; begone; too long already have those
camps of Manlius lacked their general. Lead forth, with
the morrow, all thy men—if not all, as many at least as
thou art able; purify the city of thy presence. Thou wilt
discharge me from great terror, so soon as a wall shall be interposed
between thee and me. Dwell among us thou
canst, now no longer. I will not endure, I will not suffer,
I will not permit it! Great thanks must be rendered to the
immortal Gods, and to this Stator Jove, especially, the ancient
guardian of this city, that we have escaped so many
times already this plague, so foul, so horrible, so fraught
with ruin to the republic. Not often is the highest weal
of a state jeoparded in the person of a single individual.
So long as you plotted against me, merely as Consul elect,
O Catiline, I protected myself, not by public guards, but
by private diligence. When at the late Comitia, thou
wouldst have murdered me, presiding as Consul in the Field
of Mars, with thy competitors, I checked thy nefarious
plans, by the protection and force of my friends, without
exciting any public tumult.—In a word, as often as thou
hast thrust at me, myself have I parried the blow, although
I perceived clearly, that my fall was conjoined with dread
calamity to the republic. Now, now, thou dost strike
openly at the whole commonwealth, the dwellings of the
city; dost summon the temples of the Immortal Gods,
the lives of all citizens, in a word, Italy herself, to havoc

and perdition. Wherefore--seeing that as yet, I dare not
do what should be my first duty, what is the ancient and
peculiar usage of this state, and in accordance with the
discipline of our fathers—I will, at least, do that which in
respect to security is more lenient, in respect to the common
good, more useful. For should I command thee to
be slain, the surviving band of thy conspirators would settle
down in the republic; but if—as I have been long exhorting
thee, thou wilt go forth, the vast and pestilent contamination
of thy comrades will be drained out of the city.
What is this, Catiline? Dost hesitate to do that, for my
bidding, which of thine own accord thou wert about doing?
The Consul commands the enemy to go forth from
the state. Dost thou enquire of me, whether into exile?
I do not order, but, if thou wilt have my counsel, I advise
it.

“For what is there, O Catiline, that can delight thee any
longer in this city, in which there is not one man, without
thy band of desperadoes, who does not fear, not one who
does not hate thee?--What brand of domestic turpitude
is not burnt in upon thy life? What shame of private
bearing clings not to thee, for endless infamy? What
scenes of impure lust, what deeds of daring crime, what
horrible pollution attaches not to thy whole career?—To
what young man, once entangled in the meshes of thy corruption,
hast thou not tendered the torch of licentiousness,
or the steel of murder? Must I say more? Even of late,
when thou hadst rendered thy house vacant for new nuptials,
by the death of thy late wife, didst thou not overtop
that hideous crime, by a crime more incredible? which I
pass over, and permit willingly to rest in silence, lest it be
known, that in this state, guilt so enormous has existed,
and has not been punished. I pass over the ruin of thy
fortunes, which all men know to be impending on the
next (1) Ides, I proceed to those things which pertain not
to the private infamy of thy career, not to thy domestic
difficulties and baseness, but to the supreme safety of the
state, and to the life and welfare of us all. Can the light
of this life, the breath of this heaven, be grateful to thee,
Catiline, when thou art conscious that not one of these but

knows how thou didst stand armed in the comitium, on the
day previous (2) to the calends of January, when Lepidus
and Tullus were the Consuls? That thou hadst mustered
a band of assassins to slay the Consuls, and the noblest of
the citizens? That no relenting of thy heart, no faltering
from fear, opposed thy guilt and frenzy, but the wonted
good fortune of the commonwealth? And now I pass
from these things, for neither are these crimes not known
to all, nor have there not been many more recently committed.
How many times hast not thou thrust at me while
elect, how many times when Consul? How many thrusts
of thine so nearly aimed, that they appeared inevitable;
have I not shunned by a slight diversion, and, as they say of
gladiators, by the movements of my body? Thou doest
nothing, attemptest nothing, plannest nothing, which can
escape my knowledge, at the moment, when I would know
it. Yet thou wilt neither cease from endeavoring nor
from plotting. How many times already hath that dagger
been wrested from thy hand? how many times hath it fallen
by chance, and escaped thy grasp? Still thou canst
not be deprived of it, more than an instant's space!—And
yet, I know not with what unhallowed rites it has been
consecrated and devoted by thee, that thou shouldst deem
it necessary to flesh it in the body of a Consul.

“Now then, what life is this of thine? For I will now
address thee, not so that I may seem moved by that detestation
which I feel toward thee, but by compassion, no portion
of which is thy due. But a moment since, thou didst
come into the Senate, and which one man, from so vast a
concourse, from thine own chosen and familiar friends, saluted
thee? If this has befallen no one, within the memory
of man, wilt thou await loud contumely, condemned
already by the most severe sentence of this silence? What
wouldst thou have, when all those seats around thee were
left vacant on thy coming? When all those Consulars,
whom thou so frequently hadst designated unto slaughter,
as soon as thou didst take thy seat, left all that portion of
the benches bare and vacant? With what spirit, in one
word, can thou deem this endurable? By Hercules! did
my slaves so dread me, as all thy fellow citizens dread thee,
I should conceive it time for leaving my own house—dost
thou not hold it time to leave this city?—And if I felt

self without just cause suspected, and odious to my countrymen,
I should choose rather to be beyond the reach of their
vision, than to be gazed upon by hostile eyes of all men.
Dost thou hesitate, when conscious of thine own crimes
thou must acknowledge that the hate of all is just, and
due long ago—dost thou, I say, hesitate to avoid the presence
and the sight of those whose eyes and senses thine
aspect every day is wounding? If thine own parents
feared and hated thee, and could by no means be reconciled,
thou wouldst, I presume, withdraw thyself some-whither
beyond the reach of their eyes—now thy country,
which is the common parent of us all, dreads and detests
thee, and has passed judgment on thee long ago, as meditaing
nothing but her parricide. Wilt thou now neither revere
her authority, nor obey her judgment, nor yet dread her
violence? Since thus she now deals with thee, Catiline,
thus speaks to thee in silence.

“ `No deed of infamy hath been done in these many
years, unless through thee—no deed of atrocity without
thee—to thee alone, the murder of many citizens, to
thee alone the spoliation and oppression of our allies,
hath been free and unpunished. Thou hast been powerful
not only to escape laws and prosecutions, but openly
to break through and overturn them. To these things,
though indeed intolerable, I have submitted as best I
might—but it can now no longer be endured that I should
be in one eternal dread of thee only—that Catiline, on what
alarm soever, alone should be the source of terror—that
no treason against me can be imagined, such as should be
revolting to thy desperate criminality. Wherefore begone,
and liberate me from this terror, so that, if true, I may not
be ruined; if false I may at least shake with fear no longer.'

“If thy country should thus, as I have said, parley with
thee, should she not obtain what she demands, even if she
lack force to compel it? What more shall I say, when
thou didst offer thyself to go into some private custody?
What, when to shun suspicion, thou didst profess thy willingness
to take up thy residence under the roof of Manius
Lepidus? Refused by whom, thou hadst audacity to
come to me, and request that I would admit thee to my
house. And when thou didst receive from me this answer,

that I could not exist within the same house with that man,
whose presence even inside the same city walls, I esteemed
vast peril to my life, thou didst then go to the prætor Quintus
Metellus; and, then, repulsed by him, to Marcus Marcellus,
thine own comrade, a virtuous man truly, one whom
past doubt thou didst deem likely to be most vigilant in
guarding, most crafty in suspecting, most strenuous in
bringing thee to justice. And how far shall that man be
believed distant from deserving chains and a dungeon, who
judges himself to be worthy of safekeeping?—Since, then,
these things are so, dost hesitate, O Catiline, since here
thou canst not tarry with an equal mind, to depart for
some other land, and give that life, rescued from many just
and deserved penalties, to solitude and exile? `Lay the
matter,' thou sayest, `before the Senate,' for that it is which
thou requirest, `and if this order shall command thee into
banishment, thou wilt obey their bidding.' I will not lay it
before them—for to do so is repugnant to my character,
yet I will so act, that thou shalt clearly see what these think
of thee. Depart from the city, Catiline! Deliver the
state from terror! begone into banishment, if that be the
word for which thou tarriest!”

Then the great Orator paused once again, not to breathe,
though the vehement and uninterrupted torrent of his eloquence,
might well have required an interval of rest, but
to give the confounded listener occasion to note the feelings
of the assembled Senate, perfectly in accordance with
his words.

It was but a moment, however, that he paused, and, that
ended, again burst out the thunderous weight of his magnificent
invective.

“What means this, Catiline? Dost thou note these, dost
thou observe their silence? They permit my words, they
are mute. Why dost thou wait that confirmation of their
words, which thou seest given already by their silence?
But had I spoken these same words to that admirable youth
Publius Sextius, or to that very valiant man, Marcus Marcellus,
I tell thee that this very Senate would have, already,
in this very temple, laid violent hands on me, the Consul,
and that too most justly! But with regard to thee, when
quiescent they approve, when passive they decree, when
mute they cry aloud! Nor these alone, whose authority

it seems is very dear, whose life most cheap, in your eyes,
but all those Roman knights do likewise, most honorable
and most worthy men, and all those other valiant citizens,
who stand about the Senate house, whose dense ranks
thou couldst see, whose zeal thou couldst discover, whose
patriotic cries thou couldst hear, but a little while ago;
whose hands and weapons I have scarcely, for a long time,
restrained from thee, whom I will yet induce to escort thee
to the gates of Rome, if thou wilt leave this city, which
thou hast sought so long to devastate and ruin.

“And yet what say I? Can it be hoped that anything
should ever bend thee? that thou shouldst ever be reformed?
that thou shouldst dream of any flight? that thou
shouldst contemplate any exile? Would, would indeed
that the immortal Gods might give thee such a purpose!
And yet I perceive, if astounded by my voice thou shouldst
bend thy spirit to go into voluntary exile, how vast a storm
of odium would hang over me, if not at this present time,
when the memory of thy villanies is recent, at least from
the passions of posterity. But to me it is worth this sacrifice,
so that the storm burst on my individual head, and be
connected with no perils to the state. But that thou
shouldst be moved by thine own vices, that thou shouldst
dread the penalties of the law, that thou shouldst yield to
the exigences of the republic, this indeed is not to be expected;
for thou art not such an one, O Catiline, that any
sense of shame should ever recall thee from infamy, any
sense of fear from peril, any glimmering of reason from insanity.
Wherefore, as I have said many times already,
go forth from among us; and if thou wouldst stir up against
me, as constantly thou sayest, against me thine enemy
a storm of enmity and odium, then begone straightway
into exile. Scarcely shall I have power to endure the
clamors of the world, scarcely shall I have power to susvain
the burthen of that odium, if thou wilt but go into voluntary
banishment, now, at the consul's bidding. If, on
the contrary, thou wouldst advance my glory and my reputation,
then go forth with thy lawless band of ruffians!
Betake thyself to Manlius! stir up the desperate citizens
to arms! withdraw thyself from all good men! levy war
on thy country! exult in unhallowed schemes of robbery
and murder, so that thou shalt not pass for one driven forth

by my tyranny into the arms of strangers, but for one joining
by invitation his own friends and comrades. Yet why
should I invite thee, when I well know that thy confederates
are sent forth already, who nigh Forum Aurelium
shall wait in arms for your arrival? When I well know
that thou hast already a day promised and appointed
whereon to join the camp of Manlius? When I well know
that the silver eagle hath been prepared already—the silver
eagle which will, I trust, prove ruinous and fatal to
thee and all thine host, to which a shrine has been established
in thine own house, thy villanies its fitting incense?
For how shalt thou endure its absence any longer, thou
who wert wont to adore it, setting forth to sacrilege and
slaughter, thou who so often hast upraised that impious
right hand of thine from its accursed altars to murder citizens
of Rome?

“At length, then, at length, thou must go forth, whither
long since thy frantic and unbridled passions have impelled
thee. Nor shall this war against thy country vex or
afflict thee. Nay, rather shall it bring to thee a strange
and unimaginable pleasure, for to this frantic career did
nature give thee birth, to this hath thine own inclination
trained, to this, fortune preserved thee—for never hast thou
wished—I say not peaceful leisure—but war itself, unless
that war were sacrilegious. Thou hast drawn together
from the most infamous of wretches, wretches abandoned
not only by all fortune, but all hope, a bodyguard of desperadoes!
Among these what pleasure wilt thou not experience,
in what bliss not exult, in what raptures not
madly revel, when thou shalt neither see nor hear one virtuous
man in such a concourse of thy comrades? To this,
this mode of life tended all those strenuous toils of thine,
which are so widely talked of—to lie on the bare ground,
not lying in wait merely for some occasion of adultery,
but for some opportunity of daring crime! To watch
through the night, not plotting merely against the sleep of
betrayed husbands, but against the property of murdered
victims! Now, then, thou hast a notable occasion for displaying
those illustrious qualities of thine, that wonderful
endurance of hunger, of cold, of destitution, by which ere
long thou shalt feel thyself undone, and ruined. This
much, however, I did accomplish, when I defeated thee in

the comitia, that thou shouldst strike at the republic as an
exile, rather than ravage it as a consul; and that the warfare,
so villanously evoked by thee, should be called rather
the struggle of a base banditti, than the fair strife of warriors.

“Now, Conscript Fathers, that I may solemnly abjure
and deprecate the just reproaches of my country, listen, I
pray you, earnestly to what I say, and commit it deeply to
your memories and minds. For if my country, who is
much dearer to me than my life, if all Italy, if the whole
commonwealth should thus expostulate with me, `What
dost thou, Marcus Tullius? Him, whom thou hast proved
to be my enemy, whom thou seest the future leader in the
war against me, whom thou knowest even now the expected
general in the camp of my foes—him, the author of
every crime, the head of this conspiracy, the summoner of
insurgent slaves, and ruined citizens—him wilt thou suffer
to go forth, and in such guise, that he shall not be as one
banished from the walls, but rather as one let loose to war
against the city? Wilt thou not, then, command that he
shall be led away to prison, that he shall be hurried off to
death, that he shall be visited with the last torments of the
law? What is it, that dissuades thee? Is it the custom
of thine ancestors? Not so—for many times in this republic
have men, even in private stations, inflicted death
on traitors!—Is it the laws, enacted, concerning the punishment
of Roman citizens? Not so—for never, in this
city, have rebels against the commonwealth been suffered
to retain the rights of Citizens or Romans! Dost thou
shrink from the odium of posterity? If it be so, in truth,
thou dost repay great gratitude unto the Roman people,
who hath elevated thee, a man known by thine own actions
only, commended by no ancestral glory, so rapidly,
through all the grades of honor, to this most high authority
of consul; if in the fear of any future odium, if in the
dread of any present peril, thou dost neglect the safety of
the citizens! Again, if thou dost shrink from enmity,
whether dost deem most terrible, that, purchased by a severe
and brave discharge of duty, or that, by inability and
shameful weakness? Or, once more, when all Italy shall
be waste with civil war, when her towns shall be demolished,
her houses blazing to the sky, dost fancy that thy

good report shall not be then consumed in the fierce glare
of enmity and odium?'

“To these most solemn appeals of my country, and to
the minds of those men who think in likewise, I will now
make brief answer. Could I have judged it for the best,
O Conscript Fathers, that Catiline should have been done
to death, then would I not have granted one hour's tenure
of existence to that gladiator. For if the first of men, noblest
of citizens, were graced, not polluted, by the blood of
Saturninus, and the Gracchi, and Flaccus, and many more
in olden time, there surely is no cause why I should apprehend
a burst of future odium for taking off this parricide of
the republic. Yet if such odium did inevitably impend
above me, I have ever been of this mind, that I regard that
hatred which is earned by honorable duty not as reproach,
but glory! Yet there are some in this assembly, who
either do not see the perils which are imminent above us,
or seeing deny their eyesight. Some who have nursed the
hopes of Catiline by moderate decrees; and strengthened
this conspiracy from its birth until now, by disbelieving
its existence—and many more there are, not of the
wicked only, but of the inexperienced, who, if I should do
justice upon this man, would raise a cry that I had dealt
with him cruelly, and as a regal tyrant.

“Now I am well assured that, if he once arrive, whither
he means to go, at the camp of Manlius, there will be none
so blind as not to see the reality of this conspiracy, none
so wicked as to deny it. But on the other hand, were this
man slain, alone, I perceive that this ruin of the state might
indeed be repressed for a season, but could not be suppressed
for ever—while, if he cast himself forth, and lead
his comrades with him, and gather to his host all his disbanded
desperate outlaws, not only will this full-grown
pestilence of Rome be utterly extinguished and abolished,
but the very seed and germ of all evil will be extirpated
for ever.

“For it is a long time, O Conscript Fathers, that we
have been dwelling amid the perils and stratagems of this
conspiracy. And I know not how it is that the ripeness of
all crime, the maturity of ancient guilt and frenzy, hath
burst to light at once during my consulship. But, this I
know, that if from so vast a horde of assassins and banditti

this man alone be taken off, we may perchance be relieved
for some brief space, from apprehension and dismay, but
the peril itself will strike inward, and settle down into the
veins and vitals of the commonwealth. As oftentimes,
men laboring under some dread disease, if, while tossing in
feverish heat, they drink cold water, will seem indeed to be
relieved for some brief space, but are thereafter much more
seriously and perilously afflicted, so will this ulcer, which
exists in the republic, if relieved by the cutting off this man,
grow but the more inveterate, the others left alive. Wherefore,
O Conscript Fathers, let the wicked withdraw themselves,
let them retire from among the good, let them herd
together in one place, let them, in one word, as often I have
said before, be divided from us by the city wall. Let them
cease to plot against the consul in his own house, to stand
about the tribunal of the city prætor deterring him from
justice, to beset even the senate house with swords, to prepare
blazing brands and fiery arrows for the conflagration
of the city. Let it, in one word, be borne as an inscription
upon the brow of every citizen, what are his sentiments
toward the republic. This I can promise you, O Conscript
Fathers, that there shall be such diligence in us consuls,
such valor in the Roman knights, such unanimity in all
good citizens, that you shall see, Catiline once departed,
all that is secret exposed, all that is dark brought to light,
all that is dangerous put down, all that is guilty punished.
Under these omens, Catiline, to the eternal welfare of the
state, to thine own ruin and destruction, to the perdition
of all those who have linked themselves with thee in this
league of infamy and parricide, go forth to thine atrocious
and sacrilegious warfare! And do thou Jove, who wert
consecrated by Romulus under the same auspices with
this city, whom we truly hail as the Stator, and supporter
of this city, of this empire, chase forth this man, and this
man's associates, from thine own altars, and from the
shrines of other Gods, from the roofs and hearths of the
city, from the lives and fortunes of the citizens, and consummate
the solemn ruin of all enemies of the good, all
foes of their country, all assassins of Italy, linked in one
league of guilt and bond of infamy, living or dead, by thine
eternal torments.”

The dread voice ceased—the terrible oration ended.

And instantly with flushed cheek, and glaring eye, and the
foam on his gnashed teeth, fierce, energetical, undaunted,
Catiline sprang to his feet to reply.

But a deep solemn murmur rose on all sides, deepening,
swelling into a vast overwhelming conclamation—
“Down with the Traitor—away with the Parricide!”

But unchecked by this awful demonstration of the popular
mind, he still raised his voice to its highest pitch,
defying all, both gods and men, till again it was drowned
by that appalling torrent of scorn and imprecation.

Then, with a furious gesture, and a yelling voice that
rose clear above all the din and clamor,

“Since,” he exclaimed, “my enemies will drive me
headlong to destruction, I will extinguish the conflagration
which consumes me in their universal ruin!”

And pursued by the yells, and groans, and curses of
that great concourse, and hunted by wilder furies within
his own dark soul, the baffled Traitor rushed precipitately
homeward.

(1) The 21st of October.

(2) The 27th of October.

(1) The 28th of October.

(2) The first of November.

(3) The 6th of November. This oration was delivered on the 8th.

(1) The 13th of November.

(2) The 31st of December.