{"schema_version":1,"access":"public","rights":"Public-domain or compatibly licensed source editions; provenance is retained per record.","work":{"slug":"cicero-catiline","title":"Against Catiline","author":"Marcus Tullius Cicero","tradition":"roman","language":"la","genre":"oration","period":"63 BCE","source_url":"https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PerseusDL/canonical-latinLit/8b536bdf3ed1f43494055efe112433b4a58eab67/data/phi0474/phi013/phi0474.phi013.perseus-lat2.xml","original":{"text":"### Speech 1\n\nSECTION 1\nCHAPTER 1\n\nquo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia? nihilne te nocturnum praesidium Palati, nihil urbis vigiliae, nihil timor populi, nihil concursus bonorum omnium, nihil hic munitissimus habendi senatus locus, nihil horum ora voltusque moverunt? patere tua consilia non sentis, constrictam iam horum omnium scientia teneri coniurationem tuam non vides? quid proxima, quid superiore nocte egeris, ubi fueris, quos convocaveris, quid consili ceperis quem nostrum ignorare arbitraris?\n\nSECTION 2\nO tempora, o mores! senatus haec intellegit, consul videt; hic tamen vivit. vivit? immo vero etiam in senatum venit, fit publici consili particeps, notat et designat oculis ad caedem unum quemque nostrum. nos autem fortes viri satis facere rei publicae videmur, si istius furorem ac tela vitamus. ad mortem te, Catilina, duci iussu consulis iam pridem oportebat, in te conferri pestem quam tu in nos omnis iam diu machinaris.\n\nSECTION 3\nan vero vir amplissimus, P. Scipio, pontifex maximus, Ti. Gracchum mediocriter labefactantem statum rei publicae privatus interfecit: Catilinam orbem terrae caede atque incendiis vastare cupientem nos consules perferemus? nam illa nimis antiqua praetereo, quod C. Servilius Ahala Sp. Maelium novis rebus studentem manu sua occidit. fuit, fuit ista quondam in hac re publica virtus ut viri fortes acrioribus suppliciis civem perniciosum quam acerbissimum hostem coercerent. habemus senatus consultum in te, Catilina, vehemens et grave, non deest rei publicae consilium neque auctoritas huius ordinis: nos, nos, dico aperte, consules desumus.\n\nSECTION 4\nCHAPTER 2\n\ndecrevit quondam senatus uti L. Opimius consul videret ne quid res publica detrimenti caperet: nox nulla intercessit: interfectus est propter quasdam seditionum suspiciones C. Gracchus, clarissimo patre, avo, maioribus, occisus est cum liberis M. Fulvius consularis. simili senatus consulto C. Mario et L. Valerio consulibus est permissa res publica: num unum diem postea L. Saturninum tribunum plebis et C. Servilium praetorem mors ac rei publicae poena remorata est? at vero nos vicesimum iam diem patimur hebescere aciem horum auctoritatis. habemus enim eius modi senatus consultum, verum inclusum in tabulis, tamquam in vagina reconditum, quo ex senatus consulto confestim te interfectum esse, Catilina, convenit. vivis, et vivis non ad deponendam, sed ad confirmandam audaciam. cupio, patres conscripti, me esse clementem, cupio in tantis rei publicae periculis non dissolutum videri, sed iam me ipse inertiae nequitiaeque condemno.\n\nSECTION 5\ncastra sunt in Italia contra populum Romanum in Etruriae faucibus conlocata, crescit in dies singulos hostium numerus; eorum autem castrorum imperatorem ducemque hostium intra moenia atque adeo in senatu videtis intestinam aliquam cotidie perniciem rei publicae molientem. si te iam, Catilina, comprehendi, si interfici iussero, credo, erit verendum mihi ne non hoc potius omnes boni serius a me quam quisquam crudelius factum esse dicat. verum ego hoc quod iam pridem factum esse oportuit certa de causa nondum adducor ut faciam. tum denique interficiere, cum iam nemo tam improbus, tam perditus, tam tui similis inveniri poterit qui id non iure factum esse fateatur.\n\nSECTION 6\nquam diu quisquam erit qui te defendere audeat, vives, et vives ita ut nunc vivis, multis meis et firmis praesidiis obsessus ne commovere te contra rem publicam possis. multorum te etiam oculi et aures non sentientem, sicut adhuc fecerunt, speculabuntur atque custodient.\n\nCHAPTER 3\n\netenim quid est, Catilina, quod iam amplius exspectes, si neque nox tenebris obscurare coetus nefarios nec privata domus parietibus continere voces coniurationis tuae potest, si inlustrantur, si erumpunt omnia? muta iam istam mentem, mihi crede, obliviscere caedis atque incendiorum. teneris undique; luce sunt clariora nobis tua consilia omnia, quae iam mecum licet recognoscas.\n\nSECTION 7\nmeministine me ante diem xii Kalendas Novembris dicere in senatu fore in armis certo die, qui dies futurus esset ante diem vi Kal. Novembris, C. Manlium, audaciae satellitem atque administrum tuae? num me fefellit, Catilina, non modo res tanta tam atrox tamque incredibilis, verum, id quod multo magis est admirandum, dies? dixi ego idem in senatu caedem te optimatium contulisse in ante diem v Kalendas Novembris, tum cum multi principes civitatis Roma non tam sui conservandi quam tuorum consiliorum reprimendorum causa profugerunt. num infitiari potes te illo ipso die meis praesidiis, mea diligentia circumclusum commovere te contra rem publicam non potuisse, cum tu discessu ceterorum nostra tamen qui remansissemus caede contentum te esse dicebas?\n\nSECTION 8\nquid? cum te Praeneste Kalendis ipsis Novembribus occupaturum nocturno impetu esse confideres, sensistin illam coloniam meo iussu meis praesidiis, custodiis, vigiliis esse munitam? nihil agis, nihil moliris, nihil cogitas quod <non> ego non modo audiam sed etiam videam planeque sentiam.\n\nCHAPTER 4\n\nrecognosce mecum tandem noctem illam superiorem; iam intelleges multo me vigilare acrius ad salutem quam te ad perniciem rei publicae. dico te priore nocte venisse inter falcarios — non agam obscure — in M. Laecae domum; convenisse eodem compluris eiusdem amentiae scelerisque socios. num negare audes? quid taces? convincam, si negas. video enim esse hic in senatu quosdam qui tecum una fuerunt.\n\nSECTION 9\nO di immortales! ubinam gentium sumus? quam rem publicam habemus? in qua urbe vivimus? hic, hic sunt in nostro numero, patres conscripti, in hoc orbis terrae sanctissimo gravissimoque consilio, qui de nostro omnium interitu, qui de huius urbis atque adeo de orbis terrarum exitio cogitent. hos ego video consul et de re publica sententiam rogo, et quos ferro trucidari oportebat, eos nondum voce volnero! fuisti igitur apud Laecam illa nocte, Catilina, distribuisti partis Italiae, statuisti quo quemque proficisci placeret, delegisti quos Romae relinqueres, quos tecum educeres, discripsisti urbis partis ad incendia, confirmasti te ipsum iam esse exiturum, dixisti paulum tibi esse etiam nunc morae, quod ego viverem. reperti sunt duo equites Romani qui te ista cura liberarent et se illa ipsa nocte paulo ante lucem me in meo lecto interfecturos esse pollicerentur.\n\nSECTION 10\nhaec ego omnia vixdum etiam coetu vestro dimisso comperi; domum meam maioribus praesidiis munivi atque firmavi, exclusi eos quos tu ad me salutatum mane miseras, cum illi ipsi venissent quos ego iam multis ac summis viris ad me id temporis venturos esse praedixeram.\n\nCHAPTER 5\n\nquae cum ita sint, Catilina, perge quo coepisti: egredere aliquando ex urbe; patent portae; proficiscere. nimium diu te imperatorem tua illa Manliana castra desiderant. Educ tecum etiam omnis tuos, si minus, quam plurimos; purga urbem. Magno me metu liberaveris, modo inter me atque te murus intersit. nobiscum versari iam diutius non potes; non feram, non patiar, non sinam.\n\nSECTION 11\nMagna dis immortalibus habenda est atque huic ipsi Iovi Statori, antiquissimo custodi huius urbis, gratia, quod hanc tam taetram, tam horribilem tamque infestam rei publicae pestem totiens iam effugimus. non est saepius in uno homine summa salus periclitanda rei publicae. quam diu mihi consuli designato, Catilina, insidiatus es, non publico me praesidio, sed privata diligentia defendi. Cum proximis comitiis consularibus me consulem in campo et competitores tuos interficere voluisti, compressi conatus tuos nefarios amicorum praesidio et copiis nullo tumultu publice concitato; denique, quotienscumque me petisti, per me tibi obstiti, quamquam videbam perniciem meam cum magna calamitate rei publicae esse coniunctam.\n\nSECTION 12\nnunc iam aperte rem publicam universam petis, templa deorum immortalium, tecta urbis, vitam omnium civium, Italiam totam ad exitium et vastitatem vocas. qua re, quoniam id quod est primum, et quod huius imperi disciplinaeque maiorum proprium est, facere nondum audeo, faciam id quod est ad severitatem lenius, ad communem salutem utilius. nam si te interfici iussero, residebit in re publica reliqua coniuratorum manus; sin tu, quod te iam dudum hortor, exieris, exhaurietur ex urbe tuorum comitum magna et perniciosa sentina rei publicae.\n\nCHAPTER 6\n\nquid est, Catilina?\n\nSECTION 13\nnum dubitas id me imperante facere quod iam tua sponte faciebas? exire ex urbe iubet consul hostem. interrogas me, num in exsilium? non iubeo, sed, si me consulis, suadeo. quid est enim, Catilina, quod te iam in hac urbe delectare possit? in qua nemo est extra istam coniurationem perditorum hominum qui te non metuat, nemo qui non oderit. quae nota domesticae turpitudinis non inusta vitae tuae est? quod privatarum rerum dedecus non haeret in fama? quae libido ab oculis, quod facinus a manibus umquam tuis, quod flagitium a toto corpore afuit? cui tu adulescentulo quem corruptelarum inlecebris inretisses non aut ad audaciam ferrum aut ad libidinem facem praetulisti?\n\nSECTION 14\nquid vero? nuper cum morte superioris uxoris novis nuptiis locum vacuefecisses, nonne etiam alio incredibili scelere hoc scelus cumulavisti? quod ego praetermitto et facile patior sileri, ne in hac civitate tanti facinoris immanitas aut exstitisse aut non vindicata esse videatur. praetermitto ruinas fortunarum tuarum quas omnis proximis Idibus tibi impendere senties: ad illa venio quae non ad privatam ignominiam vitiorum tuorum, non ad domesticam tuam difficultatem ac turpitudinem, sed ad summam rem publicam atque ad omnium nostrum vitam salutemque pertinent.\n\nSECTION 15\npotestne tibi haec lux, Catilina, aut huius caeli spiritus esse iucundus, cum scias esse horum neminem qui nesciat te pridie Kalendas Ianuarias Lepido et Tullo consulibus stetisse in comitio cum telo, manum consulum et principum civitatis interficiendorum causa paravisse, sceleri ac furori tuo non mentem aliquam aut timorem tuum sed Fortunam populi Romani obstitisse? ac iam illa omitto — neque enim sunt aut obscura aut non multa commissa postea — quotiens tu me designatum, quotiens vero consulem interficere conatus es! quot ego tuas petitiones ita coniectas ut vitari posse non viderentur parva quadam declinatione et, ut aiunt, corpore effugi! nihil agis, nihil adsequeris, neque tamen conari ac velle desistis.\n\nSECTION 16\nquotiens iam tibi extorta est ista sica de manibus, quotiens excidit casu aliquo et elapsa est! quae quidem quibus abs te initiata sacris ac devota sit nescio, quod eam necesse putas esse in consulis corpore defigere.\n\nCHAPTER 7\n\nnunc vero quae tua est ista vita? sic enim iam tecum loquar, non ut odio permotus esse videar, quo debeo, sed ut misericordia, quae tibi nulla debetur. venisti paulo ante in senatum. quis te ex hac tanta frequentia, tot ex tuis amicis ac necessariis salutavit? si hoc post hominum memoriam contigit nemini, vocis exspectas contumeliam, cum sis gravissimo iudicio taciturnitatis oppressus? quid, quod adventu tuo ista subsellia vacuefacta sunt, quod omnes consulares qui tibi persaepe ad caedem constituti fuerunt, simul atque adsedisti, partem istam subselliorum nudam atque inanem reliquerunt, quo tandem animo tibi ferendum putas?\n\nSECTION 17\nservi mehercule mei si me isto pacto metuerent ut te metuunt omnes cives tui, domum meam relinquendam putarem: tu tibi urbem non arbitraris? et si me meis civibus iniuria suspectum tam graviter atque offensum viderem, carere me aspectu civium quam infestis omnium oculis conspici mallem: tu, cum conscientia scelerum tuorum agnoscas odium omnium iustum et iam diu tibi debitum, dubitas quorum mentis sensusque volneras, eorum aspectum praesentiamque vitare? si te parentes timerent atque odissent tui neque eos ratione ulla placare posses, ut opinor, ab eorum oculis aliquo concederes. nunc te patria, quae communis est parens omnium nostrum, odit ac metuit et iam diu nihil te iudicat nisi de parricidio suo cogitare: huius tu neque auctoritatem verebere nec iudicium sequere nec vim pertimesces?\n\nSECTION 18\nquae tecum, Catilina, sic agit et quodam modo tacita loquitur: nullum iam aliquot annis facinus exstitit nisi per te, nullum flagitium sine te; tibi uni multorum civium neces, tibi vexatio direptioque sociorum impunita fuit ac libera; tu non solum ad neglegendas leges et quaestiones verum etiam ad evertendas perfringendasque valuisti. superiora illa, quamquam ferenda non fuerunt, tamen ut potui tuli; nunc vero me totam esse in metu propter unum te, quicquid increpuerit, Catilinam timeri, nullum videri contra me consilium iniri posse quod a tuo scelere abhorreat, non est ferendum. quam ob rem discede atque hunc mihi timorem eripe; si est verus, ne opprimar, sin falsus, ut tandem aliquando timere desinam.\n\nSECTION 19\nCHAPTER 8\n\nhaec si tecum, ut dixi, patria loquatur, nonne impetrare debeat, etiam si vim adhibere non possit? quid, quod tu te in custodiam dedisti, quod vitandae suspicionis causa ad M’. Lepidum te habitare velle dixisti? A quo non receptus etiam ad me venire ausus es, atque ut domi meae te adservarem rogasti. cum a me quoque id responsum tulisses, me nullo modo posse isdem parietibus tuto esse tecum, quia magno in periculo essem quod isdem moenibus contineremur, ad Q. Metellum praetorem venisti. A quo repudiatus ad sodalem tuum, virum optimum, M. Metellum demigrasti, quem tu videlicet et ad custodiendum te diligentissimum et ad suspicandum sagacissimum et ad vindicandum fortissimum fore putasti. sed quam longe videtur a carcere atque a vinculis abesse debere qui se ipse iam dignum custodia iudicarit?\n\nSECTION 20\nquae cum ita sint, Catilina, dubitas, si emori aequo animo non potes, abire in aliquas terras et vitam istam multis suppliciis iustis debitisque ereptam fugae solitudinique mandare?\n\nrefer inquis ad senatum; id enim postulas et, si hic ordo placere sibi decreverit te ire in exsilium, obtemperaturum te esse dicis. non referam, id quod abhorret a meis moribus, et tamen faciam ut intellegas quid hi de te sentiant. egredere ex urbe, Catilina, libera rem publicam metu, in exsilium, si hanc vocem exspectas, proficiscere. quid est? ecquid attendis, ecquid animadvertis horum silentium? patiuntur, tacent. quid exspectas auctoritatem loquentium, quorum voluntatem tacitorum perspicis?\n\nSECTION 21\nat si hoc idem huic adulescenti optimo P. Sestio, si fortissimo viro M. Marcello dixissem, iam mihi consuli hoc ipso in templo senatus iure optimo vim et manus intulisset. de te autem, Catilina, cum quiescunt, probant, cum patiuntur, decernunt, cum tacent, clamant, neque hi solum quorum tibi auctoritas est videlicet cara, vita vilissima, sed etiam illi equites Romani, honestissimi atque optimi viri, ceterique fortissimi cives qui circumstant senatum, quorum tu et frequentiam videre et studia perspicere et voces paulo ante exaudire potuisti. quorum ego vix abs te iam diu manus ac tela contineo, eosdem facile adducam ut te haec quae vastare iam pridem studes relinquentem usque ad portas prosequantur.\n\nSECTION 22\nCHAPTER 9\n\nquamquam quid loquor? te ut ulla res frangat, tu ut umquam te corrigas, tu ut ullam fugam meditere, tu ut ullum exsilium cogites? Vtinam tibi istam mentem di immortales duint! tametsi video, si mea voce perterritus ire in exsilium animum induxeris, quanta tempestas invidiae nobis, si minus in praesens tempus recenti memoria scelerum tuorum, at in posteritatem impendeat. sed est tanti, dum modo tua ista sit privata calamitas et a rei publicae periculis seiungatur. sed tu ut vitiis tuis commoveare, ut legum poenas pertimescas, ut temporibus rei publicae cedas non est postulandum. neque enim is es, Catilina, ut te aut pudor a turpitudine aut metus a periculo aut ratio a furore revocarit.\n\nSECTION 23\nquam ob rem, ut saepe iam dixi, proficiscere ac, si mihi inimico, ut praedicas, tuo conflare vis invidiam, recta perge in exsilium; vix feram sermones hominum, si id feceris, vix molem istius invidiae, si in exsilium iussu consulis iveris, sustinebo. sin autem servire meae laudi et gloriae mavis, egredere cum importuna sceleratorum manu, confer te ad Manlium, concita perditos civis, secerne te a bonis, infer patriae bellum, exsulta impio latrocinio, ut a me non eiectus ad alienos, sed invitatus ad tuos isse videaris.\n\nSECTION 24\nquamquam quid ego te invitem, a quo iam sciam esse praemissos qui tibi ad forum Aurelium praestolarentur armati, cui sciam pactam et constitutam cum Manlio diem, a quo etiam aquilam illam argenteam quam tibi ac tuis omnibus confido perniciosam ac funestam futuram, cui domi tuae sacrarium sceleratum constitutum fuit, sciam esse praemissam? tu ut illa carere diutius possis quam venerari ad caedem proficiscens solebas, a cuius altaribus saepe istam impiam dexteram ad necem civium transtulisti?\n\nSECTION 25\nCHAPTER 10\n\nibis tandem aliquando quo te iam pridem tua ista cupiditas effrenata ac furiosa rapiebat; neque enim tibi haec res adfert dolorem, sed quandam incredibilem voluptatem. ad hanc te amentiam natura peperit, voluntas exercuit, fortuna servavit. numquam tu non modo otium sed ne bellum quidem nisi nefarium concupisti. nactus es ex perditis atque ab omni non modo fortuna verum etiam spe derelictis conflatam improborum manum.\n\nSECTION 26\nhic tu qua laetitia perfruere, quibus gaudiis exsultabis, quanta in voluptate bacchabere, cum in tanto numero tuorum neque audies virum bonum quemquam neque videbis! ad huius vitae studium meditati illi sunt qui feruntur labores tui, iacere humi non solum ad obsidendum stuprum verum etiam ad facinus obeundum, vigilare non solum insidiantem somno maritorum verum etiam bonis otiosorum. habes ubi ostentes tuam illam praeclaram patientiam famis, frigoris, inopiae rerum omnium quibus te brevi tempore confectum esse senties.\n\nSECTION 27\ntantum profeci, cum te a consulatu reppuli, ut exsul potius temptare quam consul vexare rem publicam posses, atque ut id quod esset a te scelerate susceptum latrocinium potius quam bellum nominaretur.\n\nCHAPTER 11\n\nnunc, ut a me, patres conscripti, quandam prope iustam patriae querimoniam detester ac deprecer, percipite, quaeso, diligenter quae dicam, et ea penitus animis vestris mentibusque mandate. etenim si mecum patria, quae mihi vita mea multo est carior, si cuncta Italia, si omnis res publica loquatur: M. Tulli, quid agis? tune eum quem esse hostem comperisti, quem ducem belli futurum vides, quem exspectari imperatorem in castris hostium sentis, auctorem sceleris, principem coniurationis, evocatorem servorum et civium perditorum, exire patiere, ut abs te non emissus ex urbe, sed immissus in urbem esse videatur? nonne hunc in vincla duci, non ad mortem rapi, non summo supplicio mactari imperabis? quid tandem te impedit? mosne maiorum?\n\nSECTION 28\nat persaepe etiam privati in hac re publica perniciosos civis morte multarunt. an leges quae de civium Romanorum supplicio rogatae sunt? at numquam in hac urbe qui a re publica defecerunt civium iura tenuerunt. an invidiam posteritatis times? praeclaram vero populo Romano refers gratiam qui te, hominem per te cognitum, nulla commendatione maiorum tam mature ad summum imperium per omnis honorum gradus extulit, si propter invidiam aut alicuius periculi metum salutem civium tuorum neglegis.\n\nSECTION 29\nsed si quis est invidiae metus, non est vehementius severitatis ac fortitudinis invidia quam inertiae ac nequitiae pertimescenda. an, cum bello vastabitur Italia, vexabuntur urbes, tecta ardebunt, tum te non existimas invidiae incendio conflagraturum?\n\nCHAPTER 12\n\nhis ego sanctissimis rei publicae vocibus et eorum hominum qui hoc idem sentiunt mentibus pauca respondebo. ego, si hoc optimum factu iudicarem, patres conscripti, Catilinam morte multari, unius usuram horae gladiatori isti ad vivendum non dedissem. etenim si summi viri et clarissimi cives Saturnini et Gracchorum et Flacci et superiorum complurium sanguine non modo se non contaminarunt sed etiam honestarunt, certe verendum mihi non erat ne quid hoc parricida civium interfecto invidiae mihi in posteritatem redundaret. quod si ea mihi maxime impenderet, tamen hoc animo fui semper ut invidiam virtute partam gloriam, non invidiam putarem.\n\nSECTION 30\nquamquam non nulli sunt in hoc ordine qui aut ea quae imminent non videant aut ea quae vident dissimulent; qui spem Catilinae mollibus sententiis aluerunt coniurationemque nascentem non credendo conroboraverunt; quorum auctoritate multi non solum improbi verum etiam imperiti, si in hunc animadvertissem, crudeliter et regie factum esse dicerent. nunc intellego, si iste, quo intendit, in Manliana castra pervenerit, neminem tam stultum fore qui non videat coniurationem esse factam, neminem tam improbum qui non fateatur. hoc autem uno interfecto intellego hanc rei publicae pestem paulisper reprimi, non in perpetuum comprimi posse. quod si sese eiecerit secumque suos eduxerit et eodem ceteros undique conlectos naufragos adgregarit, exstinguetur atque delebitur non modo haec tam adulta rei publicae pestis verum etiam stirps ac semen malorum omnium.\n\nSECTION 31\nCHAPTER 13\n\netenim iam diu, patres conscripti, in his periculis coniurationis insidiisque versamur, sed nescio quo pacto omnium scelerum ac veteris furoris et audaciae maturitas in nostri consulatus tempus erupit. nunc si ex tanto latrocinio iste unus tolletur, videbimur fortasse ad breve quoddam tempus cura et metu esse relevati, periculum autem residebit et erit inclusum penitus in venis atque in visceribus rei publicae. Vt saepe homines aegri morbo gravi, cum aestu febrique iactantur, si aquam gelidam biberunt, primo relevari videntur, deinde multo gravius vehementiusque adflictantur, sic hic morbus qui est in re publica relevatus istius poena vehementius reliquis vivis ingravescet.\n\nSECTION 32\nqua re secedant improbi, secernant se a bonis, unum in locum congregentur, muro denique, quod saepe iam dixi, secernantur a nobis; desinant insidiari domi suae consuli, circumstare tribunal praetoris urbani, obsidere cum gladiis curiam, malleolos et faces ad inflammandam urbem comparare; sit denique inscriptum in fronte unius cuiusque quid de re publica sentiat. polliceor hoc vobis, patres conscripti, tantam in nobis consulibus fore diligentiam, tantam in vobis auctoritatem, tantam in equitibus Romanis virtutem, tantam in omnibus bonis consensionem ut Catilinae profectione omnia patefacta, inlustrata, oppressa, vindicata esse videatis.\n\nSECTION 33\nhisce ominibus, Catilina, cum summa rei publicae salute, cum tua peste ac pernicie cumque eorum exitio qui se tecum omni scelere parricidioque iunxerunt, proficiscere ad impium bellum ac nefarium. tu, Iuppiter, qui isdem quibus haec urbs auspiciis a Romulo es constitutus, quem Statorem huius urbis atque imperi vere nominamus, hunc et huius socios a tuis ceterisque templis, a tectis urbis ac moenibus, a vita fortunisque civium omnium arcebis et homines bonorum inimicos, hostis patriae, latrones Italiae scelerum foedere inter se ac nefaria societate coniunctos aeternis suppliciis vivos mortuosque mactabis.\n\n### Speech 2\n\nSECTION 1\nCHAPTER 1\n\ntandem aliquando, Quirites, L. Catilinam, furentem audacia, scelus anhelantem, pestem patriae nefarie molientem, vobis atque huic urbi ferro flammaque minitantem ex urbe vel eiecimus vel emisimus vel ipsum egredientem verbis prosecuti sumus. abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit. nulla iam pernicies a monstro illo atque prodigio moenibus ipsis intra moenia comparabitur. atque hunc quidem unum huius belli domestici ducem sine controversia vicimus. non enim iam inter latera nostra sica illa versabitur, non in campo, non in foro, non in curia, non denique intra domesticos parietes pertimescemus. loco ille motus est, cum est ex urbe depulsus. palam iam cum hoste nullo impediente bellum iustum geremus. sine dubio perdidimus hominem magnificeque vicimus, cum illum ex occultis insidiis in apertum latrocinium coniecimus.\n\nSECTION 2\nquod vero non cruentum mucronem, ut voluit, extulit, quod vivis nobis egressus est, quod ei ferrum e manibus extorsimus, quod incolumis civis, quod stantem urbem reliquit, quanto tandem illum maerore esse adflictum et profligatum putatis? iacet ille nunc prostratus, Quirites, et se perculsum atque abiectum esse sentit et retorquet oculos profecto saepe ad hanc urbem quam e suis faucibus ereptam esse luget: quae quidem mihi laetari videtur, quod tantam pestem evomuerit forasque proiecerit.\n\nSECTION 3\nCHAPTER 2\n\nac si quis est talis qualis esse omnis oportebat, qui in hoc ipso in quo exsultat et triumphat oratio mea me vehementer accuset, quod tam capitalem hostem non comprehenderim potius quam emiserim, non est ista mea culpa, Quirites, sed temporum. interfectum esse L. Catilinam et gravissimo supplicio adfectum iam pridem oportebat, idque a me et mos maiorum et huius imperi severitas et res publica postulabat. sed quam multos fuisse putatis qui quae ego deferrem non crederent, quam multos qui propter stultitiam non putarent, quam multos qui etiam defenderent, quam multos qui propter improbitatem faverent? ac si illo sublato depelli a vobis omne periculum iudicarem, iam pridem ego L. Catilinam non modo invidiae meae verum etiam vitae periculo sustulissem.\n\nSECTION 4\nsed cum viderem, ne vobis quidem omnibus etiam tum re probata si illum, ut erat meritus, morte multassem, fore ut eius socios invidia oppressus persequi non possem, rem huc deduxi ut tum palam pugnare possetis cum hostem aperte videretis. quem quidem ego hostem, Quirites, quam vehementer foris esse timendum putem, licet hinc intellegatis, quod etiam illud moleste fero quod ex urbe parum comitatus exierit. Vtinam ille omnis secum suas copias eduxisset! Tongilium mihi eduxit quem amare in praetexta coeperat, Publicium et Minucium quorum aes alienum contractum in popina nullum rei publicae motum adferre poterat: reliquit quos viros, quanto aere alieno, quam valentis, quam nobilis!\n\nSECTION 5\nCHAPTER 3\n\nitaque ego illum exercitum prae Gallicanis legionibus et hoc dilectu quem in agro Piceno et Gallico Q. Metellus habuit, et his copiis quae a nobis cotidie comparantur, magno opere contemno, conlectum ex senibus desperatis, ex agresti luxuria, ex rusticis decoctoribus, ex eis qui vadimonia deserere quam illum exercitum maluerunt; quibus ego non modo si aciem exercitus nostri, verum etiam si edictum praetoris ostendero, concident. hos quos video volitare in foro, quos stare ad curiam, quos etiam in senatum venire, qui nitent unguentis, qui fulgent purpura, mallem secum suos milites eduxisset: qui si hic permanent, mementote non tam exercitum illum esse nobis quam hos qui exercitum deseruerunt pertimescendos. atque hoc etiam sunt timendi magis quod quid cogitent me scire sentiunt neque tamen permoventur.\n\nSECTION 6\nvideo cui sit Apulia attributa, quis habeat Etruriam, quis agrum Picenum, quis Gallicum, quis sibi has urbanas insidias caedis atque incendiorum depoposcerit. omnia superioris noctis consilia ad me perlata esse sentiunt; patefeci in senatu hesterno die; Catilina ipse pertimuit, profugit: hi quid exspectant? ne illi vehementer errant, si illam meam pristinam lenitatem perpetuam sperant futuram.\n\nCHAPTER 4\n\nquod exspectavi, iam sum adsecutus ut vos omnes factam esse aperte coniurationem contra rem publicam videretis; nisi vero si quis est qui Catilinae similis cum Catilina sentire non putet. non est iam lenitati locus; severitatem res ipsa flagitat. unum etiam nunc concedam: exeant, proficiscantur, ne patiantur desiderio sui Catilinam miserum tabescere. demonstrabo iter: Aurelia via profectus est; si accelerare volent, ad vesperam consequentur.\n\nSECTION 7\nO fortunatam rem publicam, si quidem hanc sentinam urbis eiecerit! uno me hercule Catilina exhausto levata mihi et recreata res publica videtur. quid enim mali aut sceleris fingi aut cogitari potest quod non ille conceperit? quis tota Italia veneficus, quis gladiator, quis latro, quis sicarius, quis parricida, quis testamentorum subiector, quis circumscriptor, quis ganeo, quis nepos, quis adulter, quae mulier infamis, quis corruptor iuventutis, quis corruptus, quis perditus inveniri potest qui se cum Catilina non familiarissime vixisse fateatur? quae caedes per hosce annos sine illo facta est, quod nefarium stuprum non per illum?\n\nSECTION 8\niam vero quae tanta umquam in ullo iuventutis inlecebra fuit quanta in illo? qui alios ipse amabat turpissime, aliorum amori flagitiosissime serviebat, aliis fructum libidinum, aliis mortem parentum non modo impellendo verum etiam adiuvando pollicebatur. nunc vero quam subito non solum ex urbe verum etiam ex agris ingentem numerum perditorum hominum conlegerat! nemo non modo Romae sed ne ullo quidem in angulo totius Italiae oppressus aere alieno fuit quem non ad hoc incredibile sceleris foedus asciverit.\n\nSECTION 9\nCHAPTER 5\n\natque ut eius diversa studia in dissimili ratione perspicere possitis, nemo est in ludo gladiatorio paulo ad facinus audacior qui se non intimum Catilinae esse fateatur, nemo in scaena levior et nequior qui se non eiusdem prope sodalem fuisse commemoret. atque idem tamen stuprorum et scelerum exercitatione adsuefactus frigore et fame et siti et vigiliis perferendis fortis ab istis praedicabatur, cum industriae subsidia atque instrumenta virtutis in libidine audaciaque consumeret.\n\nSECTION 10\nhunc vero si secuti erunt sui comites, si ex urbe exierint desperatorum hominum flagitiosi greges, o nos beatos, o rem publicam fortunatum, o praeclaram laudem consulatus mei! non enim iam sunt mediocres hominum libidines, non humanae et tolerandae audaciae; nihil cogitant nisi caedem, nisi incendia, nisi rapinas. patrimonia sua profuderunt, fortunas suas obligaverunt; res eos iam pridem, fides nuper deficere coepit: eadem tamen illa quae erat in abundantia libido permanet. quod si in vino et alea comissationes solum et scorta quaererent, essent illi quidem desperandi, sed tamen essent ferendi: hoc vero quis ferre possit, inertis homines fortissimis viris insidiari, stultissimos prudentissimis, ebrios sobriis, dormientis vigilantibus? qui mihi accubantes in conviviis, complexi mulieres impudicas, vino languidi, conferti cibo, sertis redimiti, unguentis obliti, debilitati stupris eructant sermonibus suis caedem bonorum atque urbis incendia.\n\nSECTION 11\nquibus ego confido impendere fatum aliquod et poenam iam diu improbitati, nequitiae, sceleri, libidini debitam aut instare iam plane aut certe appropinquare. quos si meus consulatus, quoniam sanare non potest, sustulerit, non breve nescio quod tempus sed multa saecula propagarit rei publicae. nulla enim est natio quam pertimescamus, nullus rex qui bellum populo Romano facere possit. omnia sunt externa unius virtute terra marique pacata: domesticum bellum manet, intus insidiae sunt, intus inclusum periculum est, intus est hostis. cum luxuria nobis, cum amentia, cum scelere certandum est. huic ego me bello ducem profiteor, Quirites; suscipio inimicitias hominum perditorum; quae sanari poterunt quacumque ratione sanabo, quae resecanda erunt non patiar ad perniciem civitatis manere. proinde aut exeant aut quiescant aut, si et in urbe et in eadem mente permanent, ea quae merentur exspectent.\n\nSECTION 12\nCHAPTER 6\n\nat etiam sunt qui dicant, Quirites, a me eiectum esse Catilinam. quod ego si verbo adsequi possem, istos ipsos eicerem qui haec loquuntur. homo enim videlicet timidus aut etiam permodestus vocem consulis ferre non potuit; simul atque ire in exsilium iussus est, paruit. quin hesterno die, cum domi meae paene interfectus essem, senatum in aedem Iovis Statoris convocavi, rem omnem ad patres conscriptos detuli. quo cum Catilina venisset, quis eum senator appellavit, quis salutavit, quis denique ita aspexit ut perditum civem ac non potius ut importunissimum hostem? quin etiam principes eius ordinis partem illam subselliorum ad quam ille accesserat nudam atque inanem reliquerunt.\n\nSECTION 13\nhic ego vehemens ille consul qui verbo civis in exsilium eicio quaesivi a Catilina in nocturno conventu ad M. Laecam fuisset necne. cum ille homo audacissimus conscientia convictus primo reticuisset, patefeci cetera: quid ea nocte egisset, ubi fuisset, quid in proximam constituisset, quem ad modum esset ei ratio totius belli descripta edocui. cum haesitaret, cum teneretur, quaesivi quid dubitaret proficisci eo quo iam pridem pararet, cum arma, cum securis, cum fascis, cum tubas, cum signa militaria, cum aquilam illam argenteam cui ille etiam sacrarium domi suae fecerat scirem esse praemissam.\n\nSECTION 14\nin exsilium eiciebam quem iam ingressum esse in bellum videram? etenim, credo, Manlius iste centurio qui in agro Faesulano castra posuit bellum populo Romano suo nomine indixit, et illa castra nunc non Catilinam ducem exspectant, et ille eiectus in exsilium se Massiliam, ut aiunt, non in haec castra confert.\n\nCHAPTER 7\n\nO condicionem miseram non modo administrandae verum etiam conservandae rei publicae! nunc si L. Catilina consiliis, laboribus, periculis meis circumclusus ac debilitatus subito pertimuerit, sententiam mutaverit, deseruerit suos, consilium belli faciendi abiecerit, et ex hoc cursu sceleris ac belli iter ad fugam atque in exsilium converterit, non ille a me spoliatus armis audaciae, non obstupefactus ac perterritus mea diligentia, non de spe conatuque depulsus, sed indemnatus innocens in exsilium eiectus a consule vi et minis esse dicetur: et erunt qui illum, si hoc fecerit, non improbum sed miserum, me non diligentissimum consulem sed crudelissimum tyrannum existimari velint!\n\nSECTION 15\nest mihi tanti, Quirites, huius invidiae falsae atque iniquae tempestatem subire, dum modo a vobis huius horribilis belli ac nefarii periculum depellatur. dicatur sane eiectus esse a me, dum modo eat in exsilium. sed mihi credite, non est iturus. numquam ego ab dis immortalibus optabo, Quirites, invidiae meae relevandae causa ut L. Catilinam ducere exercitum hostium atque in armis volitare audiatis, sed triduo tamen audietis; multoque magis illud timeo ne mihi sit invidiosum aliquando quod illum emiserim potius quam quod eiecerim. sed cum sint homines qui illum, cum profectus sit, eiectum esse dicant, idem, si interfectus esset, quid dicerent?\n\nSECTION 16\nquamquam isti qui Catilinam Massiliam ire dictitant non tam hoc queruntur quam verentur. nemo est istorum tam misericors qui illum non ad Manlium quam ad Massiliensis ire malit. ille autem, si me hercule hoc quod agit numquam antea cogitasset, tamen latrocinantem se interfici mallet quam exsulem vivere. nunc vero, cum ei nihil adhuc praeter ipsius voluntatem cogitationemque acciderit, nisi quod vivis nobis Roma profectus est, optemus potius ut eat in exsilium quam queramur.\n\nSECTION 17\nCHAPTER 8\n\nsed cur tam diu de uno hoste loquimur et de eo hoste qui iam fatetur se esse hostem, et quem, quia, quod semper volui, murus interest, non timeo: de his qui dissimulant, qui Romae remanent, qui nobiscum sunt nihil dicimus? quos quidem ego, si ullo modo fieri possit, non tam ulcisci studeo quam sanare sibi ipsos, placare rei publicae, neque id qua re fieri non possit, si iam me audire volent, intellego. exponam enim vobis, Quirites, ex quibus generibus hominum istae copiae comparentur; deinde singulis medicinam consili atque orationis meae, si quam potero, adferam.\n\nSECTION 18\nVnum genus est eorum qui magno in aere alieno maiores etiam possessiones habent quarum amore adducti dissolvi nullo modo possunt. Horum hominum species est honestissima — sunt enim locupletes — voluntas vero et causa impudentissima. tu agris, tu aedificiis, tu argento, tu familia, tu rebus omnibus ornatus et copiosus sis, et dubites de possessione detrahere, adquirere ad fidem? quid enim exspectas? bellum? quid ergo? in vastatione omnium tuas possessiones sacrosanctas futuras putes? an tabulas novas? errant qui istas a Catilina exspectant: meo beneficio tabulae novae proferuntur, verum auctionariae; neque enim isti qui possessiones habent alia ratione ulla salvi esse possunt. quod si maturius facere voluissent neque, id quod stultissimum est, certare cum usuris fructibus praediorum, et locupletioribus his et melioribus civibus uteremur. sed hosce homines minime puto pertimescendos, quod aut deduci de sententia possunt aut, si permanebunt, magis mihi videntur vota facturi contra rem publicam quam arma laturi.\n\nSECTION 19\nCHAPTER 9\n\nalterum genus est eorum qui, quamquam premuntur aere alieno, dominationem tamen exspectant, rerum potiri volunt, honores quos quieta re publica desperant perturbata se consequi posse arbitrantur. quibus hoc praecipiendum videtur, unum scilicet et idem quod reliquis omnibus, ut desperent id quod conantur se consequi posse: primum omnium me ipsum vigilare, adesse, providere rei publicae; deinde magnos animos esse in bonis viris, magnam concordiam <ordinum>, maximam multitudinem, magnas praeterea militum copias; deos denique immortalis huic invicto populo, clarissimo imperio, pulcherrimae urbi contra tantam vim sceleris praesentis auxilium esse laturos. quod si iam sint id quod summo furore cupiunt adepti, num illi in cinere urbis et in sanguine civium, quae mente conscelerata ac nefaria concupiverunt, consules se aut dictatores aut etiam reges sperant futuros? non vident id se cupere quod, si adepti sint, fugitivo alicui aut gladiatori concedi sit necesse?\n\nSECTION 20\nTertium genus est aetate iam adfectum, sed tamen exercitatione robustum; quo ex genere iste est Manlius cui nunc Catilina succedit. hi sunt homines ex eis coloniis quas Sulla constituit; quas ego universas civium esse optimorum et fortissimorum virorum sentio, sed tamen ei sunt coloni qui se <in> insperatis ac repentinis pecuniis sumptuosius insolentiusque iactarunt. hi dum aedificant tamquam beati, dum praediis lectis, familiis magnis, conviviis apparatis delectantur, in tantum aes alienum inciderunt ut, si salvi esse velint, Sulla sit eis ab inferis excitandus: qui etiam non nullos agrestis homines tenuis atque egentis in eandem illam spem rapinarum veterum impulerunt. quos ego utrosque in eodem genere praedatorum direptorumque pono, sed eos hoc moneo, desinant furere ac proscriptiones et dictaturas cogitare. tantus enim illorum temporum dolor inustus est civitati ut iam ista non modo homines sed ne pecudes quidem mihi passurae esse videantur.\n\nSECTION 21\nCHAPTER 10\n\nquartum genus est sane varium et mixtum et turbulentum; qui iam pridem premuntur, qui numquam emergunt, qui partim inertia, partim male gerendo negotio, partim etiam sumptibus in vetere aere alieno vacillant, qui vadimoniis, iudiciis, proscriptione bonorum defetigati permulti et ex urbe et ex agris se in illa castra conferre dicuntur. hosce ego non tam milites acris quam infitiatores lentos esse arbitror. qui homines <quam> primum, si stare non possunt, conruant, sed ita ut non modo civitas sed ne vicini quidem proximi sentiant. nam illud non intellego quam ob rem, si vivere honeste non possunt, perire turpiter velint, aut cur minore dolore perituros se cum multis quam si soli pereant arbitrentur.\n\nSECTION 22\nQuintum genus est parricidarum, sicariorum, denique omnium facinerosorum. quos ego a Catilina non revoco; nam neque ab eo divelli possunt et pereant sane in latrocinio, quoniam sunt ita multi ut eos carcer capere non possit. postremum autem genus est non solum numero verum etiam genere ipso atque vita quod proprium Catilinae est, de eius dilectu, immo vero de complexu eius ac sinu; quos pexo capillo, nitidos, aut imberbis aut bene barbatos videtis, manicatis et talaribus tunicis, velis amictos, non togis; quorum omnis industria vitae et vigilandi labor in antelucanis cenis expromitur.\n\nSECTION 23\nin his gregibus omnes aleatores, omnes adulteri, omnes impuri impudicique versantur. hi pueri tam lepidi ac delicati non solum amare et amari neque saltare et cantare sed etiam sicas vibrare et spargere venena didicerunt. qui nisi exeunt, nisi pereunt, etiam si Catilina perierit, scitote hoc in re publica seminarium Catilinarum futurum. verum tamen quid sibi isti miseri volunt? num suas secum mulierculas sunt in castra ducturi? quem ad modum autem illis carere poterunt, his praesertim iam noctibus? quo autem pacto illi Appenninum atque illas pruinas ac nivis perferent? nisi idcirco se facilius hiemem toleraturos putant, quod nudi in conviviis saltare didicerunt.\n\nSECTION 24\nCHAPTER 11\n\nO bellum magno opere pertimescendum, cum hanc sit habiturus Catilina scortorum cohortem praetoriam! instruite nunc, Quirites, contra has tam praeclaras Catilinae copias vestra praesidia vestrosque exercitus. et primum gladiatori illi confecto et saucio consules imperatoresque vestros opponite; deinde contra illam naufragorum eiectam ac debilitatam manum florem totius Italiae ac robur educite. iam vero urbes coloniarum ac municipiorum respondebunt Catilinae tumulis silvestribus. neque ego ceteras copias, ornamenta, praesidia vestra cum illius latronis inopia atque egestate conferre debeo.\n\nSECTION 25\nsed si, omissis his rebus quibus nos suppeditamur, eget ille, senatu, equitibus Romanis, urbe, aerario, vectigalibus, cuncta Italia, provinciis omnibus, exteris nationibus, si his rebus omissis causas ipsas quae inter se confligunt contendere velimus, ex eo ipso quam valde illi iaceant intellegere possumus. ex hac enim parte pudor pugnat, illinc petulantia; hinc pudicitia, illinc stuprum; hinc fides, illinc fraudatio; hinc pietas, illinc scelus; hinc constantia, illinc furor; hinc honestas, illinc turpitudo; hinc continentia, illinc libido; hinc denique aequitas, temperantia, fortitudo, prudentia, virtutes omnes certant cum iniquitate, luxuria, ignavia, temeritate, cum vitiis omnibus; postremo copia cum egestate, bona ratio cum perdita, mens sana cum amentia, bona denique spes cum omnium rerum desperatione confligit. in eius modi certamine ac proelio nonne, si hominum studia deficiant, di ipsi immortales cogant ab his praeclarissimis virtutibus tot et tanta vitia superari?\n\nSECTION 26\nCHAPTER 12\n\nquae cum ita sint, Quirites, vos, quem ad modum iam antea dixi, vestra tecta vigiliis custodiisque defendite; mihi ut urbi sine vestro metu ac sine ullo tumultu satis esset praesidi consultum atque provisum est. coloni omnes municipesque vestri certiores a me facti de hac nocturna excursione Catilinae facile urbis suas finisque defendent; gladiatores, quam sibi ille manum certissimam fore putavit, quamquam animo meliore sunt quam pars patriciorum, potestate tamen nostra continebuntur. Q. Metellus quem ego hoc prospiciens in agrum Gallicum Picenumque praemisi aut opprimet hominem aut eius omnis motus conatusque prohibebit. reliquis autem de rebus constituendis, maturandis, agendis iam ad senatum referemus, quem vocari videtis.\n\nSECTION 27\nnunc illos qui in urbe remanserunt atque adeo qui contra urbis salutem omniumque vestrum in urbe a Catilina relicti sunt, quamquam sunt hostes, tamen, quia nati sunt cives, monitos etiam atque etiam volo. mea lenitas adhuc si cui solutior visa est, hoc exspectavit ut id quod latebat erumperet. quod reliquum est, iam non possum oblivisci meam hanc esse patriam, me horum esse consulem, mihi aut cum his vivendum aut pro his esse moriendum. nullus est portis custos, nullus insidiator viae: si qui exire volunt, conivere possum; qui vero se in urbe commoverit cuius ego non modo factum sed vel inceptum ullum conatumve contra patriam deprehendero, sentiet in hac urbe esse consules vigilantis, esse egregios magistratus, esse fortem senatum, esse arma, esse carcerem quem vindicem nefariorum ac manifestorum scelerum maiores nostri esse voluerunt.\n\nSECTION 28\nCHAPTER 13\n\natque haec omnia sic agentur ut maximae res minimo motu, pericula summa nullo tumultu, bellum intestinum ac domesticum post hominum memoriam crudelissimum et maximum me uno togato duce et imperatore sedetur. quod ego sic administrabo, Quirites, ut, si ullo modo fieri poterit, ne improbus quidem quisquam in hac urbe poenam sui sceleris sufferat. sed si vis manifestae audaciae, si impendens patriae periculum me necessario de hac animi lenitate deduxerit, illud profecto perficiam quod in tanto et tam insidioso bello vix optandum videtur, ut neque bonus quisquam intereat paucorumque poena vos omnes salvi esse possitis.\n\nSECTION 29\nquae quidem ego neque mea prudentia neque humanis consiliis fretus polliceor vobis, Quirites, sed multis et non dubiis deorum immortalium significationibus, quibus ego ducibus in hanc spem sententiamque sum ingressus; qui iam non procul, ut quondam solebant, ab externo hoste atque longinquo, sed hic praesentes suo numine atque auxilio sua templa atque urbis tecta defendunt. quos vos, Quirites, precari, venerari, implorare debetis ut, quam urbem pulcherrimam florentissimam potentissimamque esse voluerunt, hanc omnibus hostium copiis terra marique superatis a perditissimorum civium nefario scelere defendant.\n\n### Speech 3\n\nSECTION 1\nCHAPTER 1\n\nrem publicam, Quirites, vitamque omnium vestrum, bona, fortunas, coniuges liberosque vestros atque hoc domicilium clarissimi imperi, fortunatissimam pulcherrimamque urbem, hodierno die deorum immortalium summo erga vos amore, laboribus, consiliis, periculis meis e flamma atque ferro ac paene ex faucibus fati ereptam et vobis conservatam ac restitutam videtis.\n\nSECTION 2\net si non minus nobis iucundi atque inlustres sunt ei dies quibus conservamur quam illi quibus nascimur, quod salutis certa laetitia est, nascendi incerta condicio et quod sine sensu nascimur, cum voluptate servamur, profecto, quoniam illum qui hanc urbem condidit ad deos immortalis benivolentia famaque sustulimus, esse apud vos posterosque vestros in honore debebit is qui eandem hanc urbem conditam amplificatamque servavit. nam toti urbi, templis, delubris, tectis ac moenibus subiectos prope iam ignis circumdatosque restinximus, idemque gladios in rem publicam destrictos rettudimus mucronesque eorum a iugulis vestris deiecimus.\n\nSECTION 3\nquae quoniam in senatu inlustrata, patefacta, comperta sunt per me, vobis iam exponam breviter ut et quanta et quam manifesta et qua ratione investigata et comprehensa sint vos qui et ignoratis et exspectatis scire possitis.\n\nprincipio, ut Catilina paucis ante diebus erupit ex urbe, cum sceleris sui socios huiusce nefarii belli acerrimos duces Romae reliquisset, semper vigilavi et providi, Quirites, quem ad modum in tantis et tam absconditis insidiis salvi esse possemus.\n\nCHAPTER 2\n\nnam tum cum ex urbe Catilinam eiciebam — non enim iam vereor huius verbi invidiam, cum illa magis sit timenda, quod vivus exierit —, sed tum cum illum exterminari volebam, aut reliquam coniuratorum manum simul exituram aut eos qui restitissent infirmos sine illo ac debilis fore putabam.\n\nSECTION 4\natque ego, ut vidi, quos maximo furore et scelere esse inflammatos sciebam, eos nobiscum esse et Romae remansisse, in eo omnis dies noctesque consumpsi ut quid agerent, quid molirentur sentirem ac viderem, ut, quoniam auribus vestris propter incredibilem magnitudinem sceleris minorem fidem faceret oratio mea, rem ita comprehenderem ut tum demum animis saluti vestrae provideretis cum oculis maleficium ipsum videretis. itaque ut comperi legatos Allobrogum belli Transalpini et tumultus Gallici excitandi causa a P. Lentulo esse sollicitatos, eosque in Galliam ad suos civis eodemque itinere cum litteris mandatisque ad Catilinam esse missos, comitemque eis adiunctum esse T. Volturcium, atque huic esse ad Catilinam datas litteras, facultatem mihi oblatam putavi ut, quod erat difficillimum quodque ego semper optabam ab dis immortalibus, tota res non solum a me sed etiam a senatu et a vobis manifesto deprenderetur.\n\nSECTION 5\nitaque hesterno die L. Flaccum et C. Pomptinum praetores, fortissimos atque amantissimos rei publicae viros, ad me vocavi, rem exposui, quid fieri placeret ostendi. illi autem, qui omnia de re publica praeclara atque egregia sentirent, sine recusatione ac sine ulla mora negotium susceperunt et, cum advesperasceret, occulte ad pontem Mulvium pervenerunt atque ibi in proximis villis ita bipertito fuerunt ut Tiberis inter eos et pons interesset. eodem autem et ipsi sine cuiusquam suspicione multos fortis viros eduxerant, et ego ex praefectura Reatina compluris delectos adulescentis quorum opera utor adsidue in rei publicae praesidio cum gladiis miseram.\n\nSECTION 6\ninterim tertia fere vigilia exacta, cum iam pontem Mulvium magno comitatu legati Allobroges ingredi inciperent unaque Volturcius, fit in eos impetus; ducuntur et ab illis gladii et a nostris. res praetoribus erat nota solis, ignorabatur a ceteris.\n\nCHAPTER 3\n\ntum interventu Pomptini atque Flacci pugna quae erat commissa sedatur. Litterae quaecumque erant in eo comitatu integris signis praetoribus traduntur; ipsi comprehensi ad me, cum iam dilucesceret, deducuntur. atque horum omnium scelerum improbissimum machinatorem, Cimbrum Gabinium, statim ad me nihil dum suspicantem vocavi; deinde item arcessitus est L. Statilius et post eum Cethegus; tardissime autem Lentulus venit, credo quod in litteris dandis praeter consuetudinem proxima nocte vigilarat.\n\nSECTION 7\ncum summis et clarissimis huius civitatis viris qui audita re frequentes ad me mane convenerant litteras a me prius aperiri quam ad senatum deferri placeret, ne, si nihil esset inventum, temere a me tantus tumultus iniectus civitati videretur, negavi me esse facturum ut de periculo publico non ad consilium publicum rem integram deferrem. etenim, Quirites, si ea quae erant ad me delata reperta non essent, tamen ego non arbitrabar in tantis rei publicae periculis esse mihi nimiam diligentiam pertimescendam. senatum frequentem celeriter, ut vidistis, coegi.\n\nSECTION 8\natque interea statim admonitu Allobrogum C. Sulpicium praetorem, fortem virum, misi qui ex aedibus Cethegi si quid telorum esset efferret; ex quibus ille maximum sicarum numerum et gladiorum extulit.\n\nCHAPTER 4\n\nintroduxi Volturcium sine Gallis; fidem publicam iussu senatus dedi; hortatus sum ut ea quae sciret sine timore indicaret. tum ille dixit, cum vix se ex magno timore recreasset, a P. Lentulo se habere ad Catilinam mandata et litteras ut servorum praesidio uteretur, ut ad urbem quam primum cum exercitu accederet; id autem eo consilio ut, cum urbem ex omnibus partibus quem ad modum descriptum distributumque erat incendissent caedemque infinitam civium fecissent, praesto esset ille qui et fugientis exciperet et se cum his urbanis ducibus coniungeret.\n\nSECTION 9\nintroducti autem Galli ius iurandum sibi et litteras a P. Lentulo, Cethego, Statilio ad suam gentem datas esse dixerunt, atque ita sibi ab his et a L. Cassio esse praescriptum ut equitatum in Italiam quam primum mitterent; pedestris sibi copias non defuturas. Lentulum autem sibi confirmasse ex fatis Sibyllinis haruspicumque responsis se esse tertium illum Cornelium ad quem regnum huius urbis atque imperium pervenire esset necesse: Cinnam ante se et Sullam fuisse. eundemque dixisse fatalem hunc annum esse ad interitum huius urbis atque imperi qui esset annus decimus post virginum absolutionem, post Capitoli autem incensionem vicesimus.\n\nSECTION 10\nhanc autem Cethego cum ceteris controversiam fuisse dixerunt quod Lentulo et aliis Saturnalibus caedem fieri atque urbem incendi placeret, Cethego nimium id longum videretur.\n\nCHAPTER 5\n\nac ne longum sit, Quirites, tabellas proferri iussimus quae a quoque dicebantur datae. primo ostendimus Cethego: signum cognovit. nos linum incidimus; legimus. erat scriptum ipsius manu Allobrogum senatui et populo sese quae eorum legatis confirmasset facturum esse; orare ut item illi facerent quae sibi eorum legati recepissent. tum Cethegus, qui paulo ante aliquid tamen de gladiis ac sicis quae apud ipsum erant deprehensa respondisset dixissetque se semper bonorum ferramentorum studiosum fuisse, recitatis litteris debilitatus atque abiectus conscientia repente conticuit. introductus Statilius cognovit et signum et manum suam. recitatae sunt tabellae in eandem fere sententiam; confessus est. tum ostendi tabellas Lentulo et quaesivi cognosceretne signum. adnuit. est vero inquam notum quidem signum, imago avi tui, clarissimi viri, qui amavit unice patriam et civis suos; quae quidem te a tanto scelere etiam muta revocare debuit.\n\nSECTION 11\nleguntur eadem ratione ad senatum Allobrogum populumque litterae. si quid de his rebus dicere vellet, feci potestatem. atque ille primo quidem negavit; post autem aliquanto, toto iam indicio exposito atque edito, surrexit, quaesivit a Gallis quid sibi esset cum eis, quam ob rem domum suam venissent, itemque a Volturcio. qui cum illi breviter constanterque respondissent per quem ad eum quotiensque venissent, quaesissentque ab eo nihilne secum esset de fatis Sibyllinis locutus, tum ille subito scelere demens quanta conscientiae vis esset ostendit. nam, cum id posset infitiari, repente praeter opinionem omnium confessus est. ita eum non modo ingenium illud et dicendi exercitatio qua semper valuit sed etiam propter vim sceleris manifesti atque deprehensi impudentia qua superabat omnis improbitasque defecit.\n\nSECTION 12\nVolturcius vero subito litteras proferri atque aperiri iubet quas sibi a Lentulo ad Catilinam datas esse dicebat. atque ibi vehementissime perturbatus Lentulus tamen et signum et manum suam cognovit. erant autem sine nomine, sed ita: quis sim scies ex eo quem ad te misi. cura ut vir sis et cogita quem in locum sis progressus. vide ecquid tibi iam sit necesse et cura ut omnium tibi auxilia adiungas, etiam infimorum. Gabinius deinde introductus, cum primo impudenter respondere coepisset, ad extremum nihil ex eis quae Galli insimulabant negavit.\n\nSECTION 13\nac mihi quidem, Quirites, cum illa certissima visa sunt argumenta atque indicia sceleris, tabellae, signa, manus, denique unius cuiusque confessio, tum multo certiora illa, color, oculi, voltus, taciturnitas. sic enim obstupuerant, sic terram intuebantur, sic furtim non numquam inter sese aspiciebant ut non iam ab aliis indicari sed indicare se ipsi viderentur.\n\nCHAPTER 6\n\nindiciis expositis atque editis, Quirites, senatum consului de summa re publica quid fieri placeret. Dictae sunt a principibus acerrimae ac fortissimae sententiae, quas senatus sine ulla varietate est secutus. et quoniam nondum est perscriptum senatus consultum, ex memoria vobis, Quirites, quid senatus censuerit exponam.\n\nSECTION 14\nprimum mihi gratiae verbis amplissimis aguntur, quod virtute, consilio, providentia mea res publica maximis periculis sit liberata. deinde L. Flaccus et C. Pomptinus praetores, quod eorum opera forti fidelique usus essem, merito ac iure laudantur. atque etiam viro forti, conlegae meo, laus impertitur, quod eos qui huius coniurationis participes fuissent a suis et a rei publicae consiliis removisset. atque ita censuerunt ut P. Lentulus, cum se praetura abdicasset, in custodiam traderetur; itemque uti C. Cethegus, L. Statilius, P. Gabinius qui omnes praesentes erant in custodiam traderentur; atque idem hoc decretum est in L. Cassium qui sibi procurationem incendendae urbis depoposcerat, in M. Ceparium cui ad sollicitandos pastores Apuliam attributam esse erat indicatum, in P. Furium qui est ex eis colonis quos Faesulas L. Sulla deduxit, in Q. Annium Chilonem qui una cum hoc Furio semper erat in hac Allobrogum sollicitatione versatus, in P. Umbrenum, libertinum hominem, a quo primum Gallos ad Gabinium perductos esse constabat. atque ea lenitate senatus est usus, Quirites, ut ex tanta coniuratione tantaque hac multitudine domesticorum hostium novem hominum perditissimorum poena re publica conservata reliquorum mentis sanari posse arbitraretur.\n\nSECTION 15\natque etiam supplicatio dis immortalibus pro singulari eorum merito meo nomine decreta est, quod mihi primum post hanc urbem conditam togato contigit, et his decreta verbis est: quod urbem incendiis, caede civis, Italiam bello liberassem. quae supplicatio si cum ceteris supplicationibus conferatur, hoc interest, quod ceterae bene gesta, haec una conservata re publica constituta est. atque illud quod faciendum primum fuit factum atque transactum est. nam P. Lentulus, quamquam patefactis indiciis, confessionibus suis, iudicio senatus non modo praetoris ius verum etiam civis amiserat, tamen magistratu se abdicavit, ut quae religio C. Mario, clarissimo viro, non fuerat quo minus C. Glauciam de quo nihil nominatim erat decretum praetorem occideret, ea nos religione in privato P. Lentulo puniendo liberaremur.\n\nSECTION 16\nCHAPTER 7\n\nnunc quoniam, Quirites, consceleratissimi periculosissimique belli nefarios duces captos iam et comprehensos tenetis, existimare debetis omnis Catilinae copias, omnis spes atque opes his depulsis urbis periculis concidisse. quem quidem ego cum ex urbe pellebam, hoc providebam animo, Quirites, remoto Catilina non mihi esse P. Lentuli somnum nec L. Cassi adipes nec C. Cethegi furiosam temeritatem pertimescendam. ille erat unus timendus ex istis omnibus, sed tam diu dum urbis moenibus continebatur. omnia norat, omnium aditus tenebat; appellare, temptare, sollicitare poterat, audebat. erat ei consilium ad facinus aptum, consilio autem neque lingua neque manus deerat. iam ad certas res conficiendas certos homines delectos ac descriptos habebat. neque vero, cum aliquid mandarat, confectum putabat: nihil erat quod non ipse obiret, occurreret, vigilaret, laboraret; frigus, sitim, famem ferre poterat.\n\nSECTION 17\nhunc ego hominem tam acrem, tam audacem, tam paratum, tam callidum, tam in scelere vigilantem, tam in perditis rebus diligentem nisi ex domesticis insidiis in castrense latrocinium compulissem — dicam id quod sentio, Quirites — non facile hanc tantam molem mali a cervicibus vestris depulissem. non ille nobis Saturnalia constituisset, neque tanto ante exiti ac fati diem rei publicae denuntiavisset neque commisisset ut signum, ut litterae suae testes manifesti sceleris deprehenderentur. quae nunc illo absente sic gesta sunt ut nullum in privata domo furtum umquam sit tam palam inventum quam haec in tota re publica coniuratio manifesto comprehensa est. quod si Catilina in urbe ad hanc diem remansisset, quamquam, quoad fuit, omnibus eius consiliis occurri atque obstiti, tamen, ut levissime dicam, dimicandum nobis cum illo fuisset, neque nos umquam, cum ille in urbe hostis esset, tantis periculis rem publicam tanta pace, tanto otio, tanto silentio liberassemus.\n\nSECTION 18\nCHAPTER 8\n\nquamquam haec omnia, Quirites, ita sunt a me administrata ut deorum immortalium nutu atque consilio et gesta et provisa esse videantur. idque cum coniectura consequi possumus, quod vix videtur humani consili tantarum rerum gubernatio esse potuisse, tum vero ita praesentes his temporibus opem et auxilium nobis tulerunt ut eos paene oculis videre possimus. nam ut illa omittam, visas nocturno tempore ab occidente faces ardoremque caeli, ut fulminum iactus, ut terrae motus relinquam, ut omittam cetera quae tam multa nobis consulibus facta sunt ut haec quae nunc fiunt canere di immortales viderentur, hoc certe, Quirites, quod sum dicturus neque praetermittendum neque relinquendum est.\n\nSECTION 19\nnam profecto memoria tenetis Cotta et Torquato consulibus compluris in Capitolio res de caelo esse percussas, cum et simulacra deorum depulsa sunt et statuae veterum hominum deiectae et legum aera liquefacta et tactus etiam ille qui hanc urbem condidit Romulus, quem inauratum in Capitolio, parvum atque lactantem, uberibus lupinis inhiantem fuisse meministis. quo quidem tempore cum haruspices ex tota Etruria convenissent, caedis atque incendia et legum interitum et bellum civile ac domesticum et totius urbis atque imperi occasum appropinquare dixerunt, nisi di immortales omni ratione placati suo numine prope fata ipsa flexissent.\n\nSECTION 20\nitaque illorum responsis tum et ludi per decem dies facti sunt neque res ulla quae ad placandos deos pertineret praetermissa est. idemque iusserunt simulacrum Iovis facere maius et in excelso conlocare et contra atque antea fuerat ad orientem convertere; ac se sperare dixerunt, si illud signum quod videtis solis ortum et forum curiamque conspiceret, fore ut ea consilia quae clam essent inita contra salutem urbis atque imperi inlustrarentur ut a senatu populoque Romano perspici possent. atque illud signum conlocandum consules illi locaverunt; sed tanta fuit operis tarditas ut neque superioribus consulibus neque nobis ante hodiernum diem conlocaretur.\n\nSECTION 21\nCHAPTER 9\n\nhic quis potest esse tam aversus a vero, tam praeceps, tam mente captus qui neget haec omnia quae videmus praecipueque hanc urbem deorum immortalium nutu ac potestate administrari? etenim cum esset ita responsum, caedis, incendia, interitum rei publicae comparari, et ea per civis, quae tum propter magnitudinem scelerum non nullis incredibilia videbantur, ea non modo cogitata a nefariis civibus verum etiam suscepta esse sensistis. illud vero nonne ita praesens est ut nutu Iovis optimi maximi factum esse videatur, ut, cum hodierno die mane per forum meo iussu et coniurati et eorum indices in aedem Concordiae ducerentur, eo ipso tempore signum statueretur? quo conlocato atque ad vos senatumque converso omnia et senatus et vos quae erant contra salutem omnium cogitata inlustrata et patefacta vidistis.\n\nSECTION 22\nquo etiam maiore sunt isti odio supplicioque digni qui non solum vestris domiciliis atque tectis sed etiam deorum templis atque delubris sunt funestos ac nefarios ignis inferre conati. quibus ego si me restitisse dicam, nimium mihi sumam et non sim ferendus: ille, ille Iuppiter restitit; ille Capitolium, ille haec templa, ille cunctam urbem, ille vos omnis salvos esse voluit. dis ego immortalibus ducibus hanc mentem voluntatemque suscepi atque ad haec tanta indicia perveni. iam vero illa Allobrogum sollicitatio, iam ab Lentulo ceterisque domesticis hostibus tam dementer tantae res creditae et ignotis et barbaris commissaeque litterae numquam essent profecto, nisi ab dis immortalibus huic tantae audaciae consilium esset ereptum. quid vero? ut homines Galli ex civitate male pacata, quae gens una restat quae bellum populo Romano facere posse et non nolle videatur, spem imperi ac rerum maximarum ultro sibi a patriciis hominibus oblatam neglegerent vestramque salutem suis opibus anteponerent, id non divinitus esse factum putatis, praesertim qui nos non pugnando sed tacendo superare potuerunt?\n\nSECTION 23\nCHAPTER 10\n\nquam ob rem, Quirites, quoniam ad omnia pulvinaria supplicatio decreta est, celebratote illos dies cum coniugibus ac liberis vestris. nam multi saepe honores dis immortalibus iusti habiti sunt ac debiti, sed profecto iustiores numquam. erepti enim estis ex crudelissimo ac miserrimo interitu, erepti sine caede, sine sanguine, sine exercitu, sine dimicatione; togati me uno togato duce et imperatore vicistis.\n\nSECTION 24\netenim recordamini, Quirites, omnis civilis dissensiones, non solum eas quas audistis sed eas quas vosmet ipsi meministis atque vidistis. L. Sulla P. Sulpicium oppressit: C. Marium, custodem huius urbis, multosque fortis viros partim eiecit ex civitate, partim interemit. Cn. Octavius consul armis expulit ex urbe conlegam: omnis hic locus acervis corporum et civium sanguine redundavit. superavit postea Cinna cum Mario: tum vero clarissimis viris interfectis lumina civitatis exstincta sunt. Vltus est huius victoriae crudelitatem postea Sulla: ne dici quidem opus est quanta deminutione civium et quanta calamitate rei publicae. dissensit M. Lepidus a clarissimo et fortissimo viro Q. Catulo: attulit non tam ipsius interitus rei publicae luctum quam ceterorum.\n\nSECTION 25\n[atque illae tamen omnes] dissensiones erant eius modi quae non ad delendam sed ad commutandam rem publicam pertinerent. non illi nullam esse rem publicam sed in ea quae esset se esse principes, neque hanc urbem conflagrare sed se in hac urbe florere voluerunt. atque illae tamen omnes dissensiones, quarum nulla exitium rei publicae quaesivit, eius modi fuerunt ut non reconciliatione concordiae sed internicione civium diiudicatae sint. in hoc autem uno post hominum memoriam maximo crudelissimoque bello, quale bellum nulla umquam barbaria cum sua gente gessit, quo in bello lex haec fuit a Lentulo, Catilina, Cethego, Cassio constituta ut omnes qui salva urbe salvi esse possent in hostium numero ducerentur, ita me gessi, Quirites, ut salvi omnes conservaremini, et, cum hostes vestri tantum civium superfuturum putassent quantum infinitae caedi restitisset, tantum autem urbis quantum flamma obire non potuisset, et urbem et civis integros incolumisque servavi.\n\nSECTION 26\nCHAPTER 11\n\nquibus pro tantis rebus, Quirites, nullum ego a vobis praemium virtutis, nullum insigne honoris, nullum monumentum laudis postulabo praeterquam huius diei memoriam sempiternam. in animis ego vestris omnis triumphos meos, omnia ornamenta honoris, monumenta gloriae, laudis insignia condi et conlocari volo. nihil me mutum potest delectare, nihil tacitum, nihil denique eius modi quod etiam minus digni adsequi possint. memoria vestra, Quirites, nostrae res alentur, sermonibus crescent, litterarum monumentis inveterascent et conroborabuntur; eandemque diem intellego, quam spero aeternam fore, propagatam esse et ad salutem urbis et ad memoriam consulatus mei, unoque tempore in hac re publica duos civis exstitisse quorum alter finis vestri imperi non terrae sed caeli regionibus terminaret, alter huius imperi domicilium sedisque servaret.\n\nSECTION 27\nCHAPTER 12\n\nsed quoniam earum rerum quas ego gessi non eadem est fortuna atque condicio quae illorum qui externa bella gesserunt, quod mihi cum eis vivendum est quos vici ac subegi, illi hostis aut interfectos aut oppressos reliquerunt, vestrum est, Quirites, si ceteris facta sua recte prosunt, mihi mea ne quando obsint providere. mentes enim hominum audacissimorum sceleratae ac nefariae ne vobis nocere possent ego providi, ne mihi noceant vestrum est providere. quamquam, Quirites, mihi quidem ipsi nihil ab istis iam noceri potest. Magnum enim est in bonis praesidium quod mihi in perpetuum comparatum est, magna in re publica dignitas quae me semper tacita defendet, magna vis conscientiae quam qui neglegunt, cum me violare volent, se indicabunt.\n\nSECTION 28\nest enim nobis is animus, Quirites, ut non modo nullius audaciae cedamus sed etiam omnis improbos ultro semper lacessamus. quod si omnis impetus domesticorum hostium depulsus a vobis se in me unum converterit, vobis erit videndum, Quirites, qua condicione posthac eos esse velitis qui se pro salute vestra obtulerint invidiae periculisque omnibus: mihi quidem ipsi quid est quod iam ad vitae fructum possit adquiri, cum praesertim neque in honore vestro neque in gloria virtutis quicquam videam altius quo mihi libeat ascendere?\n\nSECTION 29\nillud perficiam profecto, Quirites, ut ea quae gessi in consulatu privatus tuear atque ornem, ut, si qua est invidia in conservanda re publica suscepta, laedat invidos, mihi valeat ad gloriam. denique ita me in re publica tractabo ut meminerim semper quae gesserim, curemque ut ea virtute non casu gesta esse videantur. vos, Quirites, quoniam iam est nox, venerati Iovem illum custodem huius urbis ac vestrum in vestra tecta discedite et ea, quamquam iam est periculum depulsum, tamen aeque ac priore nocte custodiis vigiliisque defendite. id ne vobis diutius faciendum sit atque ut in perpetua pace esse possitis providebo, Quirites.\n\n### Speech 4\n\nSECTION 1\nCHAPTER 1\n\nvideo, patres conscripti, in me omnium vestrum ora atque oculos esse conversos, video vos non solum de vestro ac rei publicae verum etiam, si id depulsum sit, de meo periculo esse sollicitos. est mihi iucunda in malis et grata in dolore vestra erga me voluntas, sed eam per deos immortalis! deponite atque obliti salutis meae de vobis ac de vestris liberis cogitate. mihi si haec condicio consulatus data est ut omnis acerbitates, omnis dolores cruciatusque perferrem, feram non solum fortiter verum etiam libenter, dum modo meis laboribus vobis populoque Romano dignitas salusque pariatur.\n\nSECTION 2\nego sum ille consul, patres conscripti, cui non forum in quo omnis aequitas continetur, non campus consularibus auspiciis consecratus, non curia, summum auxilium omnium gentium, non domus, commune perfugium, non lectus ad quietem datus, non denique haec sedes honoris umquam vacua mortis periculo atque insidiis fuit. ego multa tacui, multa pertuli, multa concessi, multa meo quodam dolore in vestro timore sanavi. nunc si hunc exitum consulatus mei di immortales esse voluerunt ut vos populumque Romanum ex caede miserrima, coniuges liberosque vestros virginesque Vestalis ex acerbissima vexatione, templa atque delubra, hanc pulcherrimam patriam omnium nostrum ex foedissima flamma, totam Italiam ex bello et vastitate eriperem, quaecumque mihi uni proponetur fortuna subeatur. etenim si P. Lentulus suum nomen inductus a vatibus fatale ad perniciem rei publicae fore putavit, cur ego non laeter meum consulatum ad salutem populi Romani prope fatalem exstitisse?\n\nSECTION 3\nCHAPTER 2\n\nqua re, patres conscripti, consulite vobis, prospicite patriae, conservate vos, coniuges, liberos fortunasque vestras, populi Romani nomen salutemque defendite; mihi parcere ac de me cogitare desinite. nam primum debeo sperare omnis deos qui huic urbi praesident pro eo mihi ac mereor relaturos esse gratiam; deinde, si quid obtigerit, aequo animo paratoque moriar. nam neque turpis mors forti viro potest accidere neque immatura consulari nec misera sapienti. nec tamen ego sum ille ferreus qui fratris carissimi atque amantissimi praesentis maerore non movear horumque omnium lacrimis a quibus me circumsessum videtis. neque meam mentem non domum saepe revocat exanimata uxor et abiecta metu filia et parvolus filius, quem mihi videtur amplecti res publica tamquam obsidem consulatus mei, neque ille qui exspectans huius exitum diei stat in conspectu meo gener. moveor his rebus omnibus, sed in eam partem uti salvi sint vobiscum omnes, etiam si me vis aliqua oppresserit, potius quam et illi et nos una rei publicae peste pereamus.\n\nSECTION 4\nqua re, patres conscripti, incumbite ad salutem rei publicae, circumspicite omnis procellas quae impendent nisi providetis. non Ti. Gracchus quod iterum tribunus plebis fieri voluit, non C. Gracchus quod agrarios concitare conatus est, non L. Saturninus quod C. Memmium occidit, in discrimen aliquod atque in vestrae severitatis iudicium adducitur: tenentur ei qui ad urbis incendium, ad vestram omnium caedem, ad Catilinam accipiendum Romae restiterunt, tenentur litterae, signa, manus, denique unius cuiusque confessio: sollicitantur Allobroges, servitia excitantur, Catilina arcessitur, id est initum consilium ut interfectis omnibus nemo ne ad deplorandum quidem populi Romani nomen atque ad lamentandam tanti imperi calamitatem relinquatur.\n\nSECTION 5\nCHAPTER 3\n\nhaec omnia indices detulerunt, rei confessi sunt, vos multis iam iudiciis iudicavistis, primum quod mihi gratias egistis singularibus verbis et mea virtute atque diligentia perditorum hominum coniurationem patefactam esse decrevistis, deinde quod P. Lentulum se abdicare praetura coegistis; tum quod eum et ceteros de quibus iudicastis in custodiam dandos censuistis, maximeque quod meo nomine supplicationem decrevistis, qui honos togato habitus ante me est nemini; postremo hesterno die praemia legatis Allobrogum Titoque Volturcio dedistis amplissima. quae sunt omnia eius modi ut ei qui in custodiam nominatim dati sunt sine ulla dubitatione a vobis damnati esse videantur.\n\nSECTION 6\nsed ego institui referre ad vos, patres conscripti, tamquam integrum, et de facto quid iudicetis et de poena quid censeatis. illa praedicam quae sunt consulis. ego magnum in re publica versari furorem et nova quaedam misceri et concitari mala iam pridem videbam, sed hanc tantam, tam exitiosam haberi coniurationem a civibus numquam putavi. nunc quicquid est, quocumque vestrae mentes inclinant atque sententiae, statuendum vobis ante noctem est. quantum facinus ad vos delatum sit videtis. huic si paucos putatis adfinis esse, vehementer erratis. Latius opinione disseminatum est hoc malum; manavit non solum per Italiam verum etiam transcendit Alpis et obscure serpens multas iam provincias occupavit. id opprimi sustentando et prolatando nullo pacto potest; quacumque ratione placet celeriter vobis vindicandum est.\n\nSECTION 7\nCHAPTER 4\n\nvideo duas adhuc esse sententias, unam D. Silani qui censet eos qui haec delere conati sunt morte esse multandos, alteram C. Caesaris qui mortis poenam removet, ceterorum suppliciorum omnis acerbitates amplectitur. Vterque et pro sua dignitate et pro rerum magnitudine in summa severitate versatur. alter eos qui nos omnis, qui populum Romanum vita privare conati sunt, qui delere imperium, qui populi Romani nomen exstinguere, punctum temporis frui vita et hoc communi spiritu non putat oportere atque hoc genus poenae saepe in improbos civis in hac re publica esse usurpatum recordatur. alter intellegit mortem a dis immortalibus non esse supplici causa constitutam, sed aut necessitatem naturae aut laborum ac miseriarum quietem. itaque eam sapientes numquam inviti, fortes saepe etiam libenter oppetiverunt. vincula vero et ea sempiterna certe ad singularem poenam nefarii sceleris inventa sunt. municipiis dispertiri iubet. habere videtur ista res iniquitatem, si imperare velis, difficultatem, si rogare.\n\nSECTION 8\ndecernatur tamen, si placet. ego enim suscipiam et, ut spero, reperiam qui id quod salutis omnium causa statueritis non putent esse suae dignitatis recusare. adiungit gravem poenam municipiis, si quis eorum vincula ruperit; horribilis custodias circumdat et dignas scelere hominum perditorum; sancit ne quis eorum poenam quos condemnat aut per senatum aut per populum levare possit; eripit etiam spem quae sola hominem in miseriis consolari solet. bona praeterea publicari iubet; vitam solam relinquit nefariis hominibus: quam si eripuisset, multas uno dolore animi atque corporis <miserias> et omnis scelerum poenas ademisset. itaque ut aliqua in vita formido improbis esset proposita, apud inferos eius modi quaedam illi antiqui supplicia impiis constituta esse voluerunt, quod videlicet intellegebant his remotis non esse mortem ipsam pertimescendam.\n\nSECTION 9\nCHAPTER 5\n\nnunc, patres conscripti, ego mea video quid intersit. si eritis secuti sententiam C. Caesaris, quoniam hanc is in re publica viam quae popularis habetur secutus est, fortasse minus erunt hoc auctore et cognitore huiusce sententiae mihi populares impetus pertimescendi; sin illam alteram, nescio an amplius mihi negoti contrahatur. sed tamen meorum periculorum rationes utilitas rei publicae vincat. habemus enim a Caesare, sicut ipsius dignitas et maiorum eius amplitudo postulabat, sententiam tamquam obsidem perpetuae in rem publicam voluntatis. intellectum est quid interesset inter levitatem contionatorum et animum vere popularem saluti populi consulentem.\n\nSECTION 10\nvideo de istis qui se popularis haberi volunt abesse non neminem, ne de capite videlicet civium Romanorum sententiam ferat. is et nudius tertius in custodiam civis Romanos dedit et supplicationem mihi decrevit et indices hesterno die maximis praemiis adfecit. iam hoc nemini dubium est qui reo custodiam, quaesitori gratulationem, indici praemium decrerit, quid de tota re et causa iudicarit. at vero C. Caesar intellegit legem Semproniam esse de civibus Romanis constitutam; qui autem rei publicae sit hostis eum civem esse nullo modo posse: denique ipsum latorem Semproniae legis iussu populi poenas rei publicae dependisse. idem ipsum Lentulum, largitorem et prodigum, non putat, cum de pernicie populi Romani, exitio huius urbis tam acerbe, tam crudeliter cogitarit, etiam appellari posse popularem. itaque homo mitissimus atque lenissimus non dubitat P. Lentulum aeternis tenebris vinculisque mandare et sancit in posterum ne quis huius supplicio levando se iactare et in pernicie populi Romani posthac popularis esse possit. adiungit etiam publicationem bonorum, ut omnis animi cruciatus et corporis etiam egestas ac mendicitas consequatur.\n\nSECTION 11\nCHAPTER 6\n\nquam ob rem, sive hoc statueritis, dederitis mihi comitem ad contionem populo carum atque iucundum, sive Silani sententiam sequi malueritis, facile me atque vos crudelitatis vituperatione populus Romanus <liberabit>, atque obtinebo eam multo leniorem fuisse. quamquam, patres conscripti, quae potest esse in tanti sceleris immanitate punienda crudelitas? ego enim de meo sensu iudico. nam ita mihi salva re publica vobiscum perfrui liceat ut ego, quod in hac causa vehementior sum, non atrocitate animi moveor — quis enim est me mitior? — sed singulari quadam humanitate et misericordia. videor enim mihi videre hanc urbem, lucem orbis terrarum atque arcem omnium gentium, subito uno incendio concidentem. cerno animo sepulta in patria miseros atque insepultos acervos civium, versatur mihi ante oculos aspectus Cethegi et furor in vestra caede bacchantis.\n\nSECTION 12\ncum vero mihi proposui regnantem Lentulum, sicut ipse se ex fatis sperasse confessus est, purpuratum esse huic Gabinium, cum exercitu venisse Catilinam, tum lamentationem matrum familias, tum fugam virginum atque puerorum ac vexationem virginum Vestalium perhorresco, et, quia mihi vehementer haec videntur misera atque miseranda, idcirco in eos qui ea perficere voluerunt me severum vehementemque praebebo. etenim quaero, si quis pater familias, liberis suis a servo interfectis, uxore occisa, incensa domo, supplicium de servis <non> quam acerbissimum sumpserit, utrum is clemens ac misericors an inhumanissimus et crudelissimus esse videatur? mihi vero importunus ac ferreus qui non dolore et cruciatu nocentis suum dolorem cruciatumque lenierit. sic nos in his hominibus qui nos, qui coniuges, qui liberos nostros trucidare voluerunt, qui singulas unius cuiusque nostrum domos et hoc universum rei publicae domicilium delere conati sunt, qui id egerunt ut gentem Allobrogum in vestigiis huius urbis atque in cinere deflagrati imperi conlocarent, si vehementissimi fuerimus, misericordes habebimur; sin remissiores esse voluerimus, summae nobis crudelitatis in patriae civiumque pernicie fama subeunda est.\n\nSECTION 13\nNisi vero cuipiam L. Caesar, vir fortissimus et amantissimus rei publicae, crudelior nudius tertius visus est, cum sororis suae, feminae lectissimae, virum praesentem et audientem vita privandum esse dixit, cum avum suum iussu consulis interfectum filiumque eius impuberem legatum a patre missum in carcere necatum esse dixit. quorum quod simile factum, quod initum delendae rei publicae consilium? largitionis voluntas tum in re publica versata est et partium quaedam contentio. atque illo tempore huius avus Lentuli, vir clarissimus, armatus Gracchum est persecutus. ille etiam grave tum volnus accepit, ne quid de summa rei publicae minueretur; hic ad evertenda fundamenta rei publicae Gallos arcessit, servitia concitat, Catilinam vocat, attribuit nos trucidandos Cethego et ceteros civis interficiendos Gabinio, urbem inflammandam Cassio, totam Italiam vastandam diripiendamque Catilinae. vereamini minus censeo ne in hoc scelere tam immani ac nefando aliquid severius statuisse videamini: multo magis est verendum ne remissione poenae crudeles in patriam quam ne severitate animadversionis nimis vehementes in acerbissimos hostis fuisse videamur.\n\nSECTION 14\nCHAPTER 7\n\nsed ea quae exaudio, patres conscripti, dissimulare non possum. iaciuntur enim voces quae perveniunt ad auris meas eorum qui vereri videntur ut habeam satis praesidi ad ea quae vos statueritis hodierno die transigenda. omnia et provisa et parata et constituta sunt, patres conscripti, cum mea summa cura atque diligentia tum multo etiam maiore populi Romani ad summum imperium retinendum et ad communis fortunas conservandas voluntate. omnes adsunt omnium ordinum homines, <omnium generum,> omnium denique aetatum; plenum est forum, plena templa circum forum, pleni omnes aditus huius templi ac loci. causa est enim post urbem conditam haec inventa sola in qua omnes sentirent unum atque idem praeter eos qui, cum sibi viderent esse pereundum, cum omnibus potius quam soli perire voluerunt.\n\nSECTION 15\nhosce ego homines excipio et secerno libenter, neque in improborum civium sed in acerbissimorum hostium numero habendos puto. ceteri vero, di immortales! qua frequentia, quo studio, qua virtute ad communem salutem dignitatemque consentiunt! quid ego hic equites Romanos commemorem? qui vobis ita summam ordinis consilique concedunt ut vobiscum de amore rei publicae certent; quos ex multorum annorum dissensione huius ordinis ad societatem concordiamque revocatos hodiernus dies vobiscum atque haec causa coniungit. quam si coniunctionem in consulatu confirmatam meo perpetuam in re publica tenuerimus, confirmo vobis nullum posthac malum civile ac domesticum ad ullam rei publicae partem esse venturum. Pari studio defendendae rei publicae convenisse video tribunos aerarios, fortissimos viros; scribas item universos quos, cum casu hic dies ad aerarium frequentasset, video ab exspectatione sortis ad salutem communem esse conversos.\n\nSECTION 16\nomnis ingenuorum adest multitudo, etiam tenuissimorum. quis est enim cui non haec templa, aspectus urbis, possessio libertatis, lux denique haec ipsa et commune patriae solum cum sit carum tum vero dulce atque iucundum?\n\nCHAPTER 8\n\noperae pretium est, patres conscripti, libertinorum hominum studia cognoscere qui, sua virtute fortunam huius civitatis consecuti, vere hanc suam patriam esse iudicant quam quidam hic nati, et summo nati loco, non patriam suam sed urbem hostium esse iudicaverunt. sed quid ego hosce ordines atque homines commemoro quos privatae fortunae, quos communis res publica, quos denique libertas ea quae dulcissima est ad salutem patriae defendendam excitavit? servus est nemo, qui modo tolerabili condicione sit servitutis, qui non audaciam civium perhorrescat, qui non haec stare cupiat, qui non quantum audet et quantum potest conferat ad salutem voluntatis.\n\nSECTION 17\nqua re si quem vestrum forte commovet hoc quod auditum est, lenonem quendam Lentuli concursare circum tabernas, pretio sperare sollicitari posse animos egentium atque imperitorum, est id quidem coeptum atque temptatum, sed nulli sunt inventi tam aut fortuna miseri aut voluntate perditi qui non illum ipsum sellae atque operis et quaestus cotidiani locum, qui non cubile ac lectulum suum, qui denique non cursum hunc otiosum vitae suae salvum esse velint. multo vero maxima pars eorum qui in tabernis sunt, immo vero — id enim potius est dicendum — genus hoc universum amantissimum est oti. etenim omne instrumentum, omnis opera atque quaestus frequentia civium sustentatur, alitur otio; quorum si quaestus occlusis tabernis minui solet, quid tandem incensis futurum fuit?\n\nSECTION 18\nquae cum ita sint, patres conscripti, vobis populi Romani praesidia non desunt: vos ne populo Romano deesse videamini providete.\n\nCHAPTER 9\n\nhabetis consulem ex plurimis periculis et insidiis atque ex media morte non ad vitam suam sed ad salutem vestram reservatum. omnes ordines ad conservandam rem publicam mente, voluntate, voce consentiunt. obsessa facibus et telis impiae coniurationis vobis supplex manus tendit patria communis, vobis se, vobis vitam omnium civium, vobis arcem et Capitolium, vobis aras Penatium, vobis illum ignem Vestae sempiternum, vobis omnium deorum templa atque delubra, vobis muros atque urbis tecta commendat. praeterea de vestra vita, de coniugum vestrarum atque liberorum anima, de fortunis omnium, de sedibus, de focis vestris hodierno die vobis iudicandum est.\n\nSECTION 19\nhabetis ducem memorem vestri, oblitum sui, quae non semper facultas datur; habetis omnis ordines, omnis homines, universum populum Romanum, id quod in civili causa hodierno die primum videmus, unum atque idem sentientem. cogitate quantis laboribus fundatum imperium, quanta virtute stabilitam libertatem, quanta deorum benignitate auctas exaggeratasque fortunas una nox paene delerit. id ne umquam posthac non modo non confici sed ne cogitari quidem possit a civibus hodierno die providendum est. atque haec, non ut vos qui mihi studio paene praecurritis excitarem, locutus sum, sed ut mea vox quae debet esse in re publica princeps officio functa consulari videretur.\n\nSECTION 20\nCHAPTER 10\n\nnunc ante quam ad sententiam redeo, de me pauca dicam. ego, quanta manus est coniuratorum, quam videtis esse permagnam, tantam me inimicorum multitudinem suscepisse video; sed eam turpem iudico et infirmam et abiectam. quod si aliquando alicuius furore et scelere concitata manus ista plus valuerit quam vestra ac rei publicae dignitas, me tamen meorum factorum atque consiliorum numquam, patres conscripti, paenitebit. etenim mors, quam illi fortasse minitantur, omnibus est parata: vitae tantam laudem quanta vos me vestris decretis honestastis nemo est adsecutus; ceteris enim semper bene gesta, mihi uni conservata re publica gratulationem decrevistis.\n\nSECTION 21\nsit Scipio clarus ille cuius consilio atque virtute Hannibal in Africam redire atque Italia decedere coactus est, ornetur alter eximia laude Africanus qui duas urbis huic imperio infestissimas Karthaginem Numantiamque delevit, habeatur vir egregius Paulus ille cuius currum rex potentissimus quondam et nobilissimus Perses honestavit, sit aeterna gloria Marius qui bis Italiam obsidione et metu servitutis liberavit, anteponatur omnibus Pompeius cuius res gestae atque virtutes isdem quibus solis cursus regionibus ac terminis continentur: erit profecto inter horum laudes aliquid loci nostrae gloriae, nisi forte maius est patefacere nobis provincias quo exire possimus quam curare ut etiam illi qui absunt habeant quo victores revertantur.\n\nSECTION 22\nquamquam est uno loco condicio melior externae victoriae quam domesticae, quod hostes alienigenae aut oppressi serviunt aut recepti beneficio se obligatos putant, qui autem ex numero civium dementia aliqua depravati hostes patriae semel esse coeperunt, eos, cum a pernicie rei publicae reppuleris, nec vi coercere nec beneficio placare possis. qua re mihi cum perditis civibus aeternum bellum susceptum esse video. id ego vestro bonorumque omnium auxilio memoriaque tantorum periculorum, quae non modo in hoc populo qui servatus est sed in omnium gentium sermonibus ac mentibus semper haerebit, a me atque a meis facile propulsari posse confido. neque ulla profecto tanta vis reperietur quae coniunctionem vestram equitumque Romanorum et tantam conspirationem bonorum omnium confringere et labefactare possit.\n\nSECTION 23\nCHAPTER 11\n\nquae cum ita sint, pro imperio, pro exercitu, pro provincia quam neglexi, pro triumpho ceterisque laudis insignibus quae sunt a me propter urbis vestraeque salutis custodiam repudiata, pro clientelis hospitiisque provincialibus quae tamen urbanis opibus non minore labore tueor quam comparo, pro his igitur omnibus rebus, pro meis in vos singularibus studiis proque hac quam perspicitis ad conservandam rem publicam diligentia nihil a vobis nisi huius temporis totiusque mei consulatus memoriam postulo: quae dum erit in vestris fixa mentibus, tutissimo me muro saeptum esse arbitrabor. quod si meam spem vis improborum fefellerit atque superaverit, commendo vobis parvum meum filium, cui profecto satis erit praesidi non solum ad salutem verum etiam ad dignitatem, si eius qui haec omnia suo solius periculo conservarit illum filium esse memineritis.\n\nSECTION 24\nquapropter de summa salute vestra populique Romani, de vestris coniugibus ac liberis, de aris ac focis, de fanis atque templis, de totius urbis tectis ac sedibus, de imperio ac libertate, de salute Italiae, de universa re publica decernite diligenter, ut instituistis, ac fortiter. habetis eum consulem qui et parere vestris decretis non dubitet et ea quae statueritis, quoad vivet, defendere et per se ipsum praestare possit.","download_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/cicero-catiline/original.txt"},"translations":[{"id":"trn_cicero_catiline_mouseia","translator":"Mouseia","kind":"curated","note":"Complete machine-assisted Musean translation made directly from the Latin in separate speech packets, preserving all four speeches and 115 sections. Source-language model review is recorded with the raw witness.","text":"### Speech 1\n\nSECTION 1\nCHAPTER 1\n\nCatiline, how much longer must our patience suffer your abuse? How long must we be mocked by that madness of yours? What limit is there to the swagger of your unrestrained recklessness? Has nothing touched you: the Palatine guarded through the night, the city’s watches, the terror of the people, all loyal men gathering together, the strength of this place where the Senate meets, the faces, the expressions of these men? Are you unaware that your designs stand exposed? Can you not see the knowledge of everyone here tightening its grip upon your conspiracy? Your acts last night and the night before, your whereabouts, the men you called together, the plan you chose—which of us, do you imagine, remains ignorant of these?\n\nSECTION 2\nWhat times! What morals! The Senate understands it all; the consul sees it. Yet this man lives. Lives? He even comes into the Senate, takes part in the public council, and marks out each one of us with his eyes for slaughter. And we, brave men that we are, think we have done enough for the republic if we avoid his madness and his weapons. Long ago, Catiline, the consul should have ordered you led to your death, bringing upon you the destruction you have long been plotting against us all.\n\nSECTION 3\nPublius Scipio, a man of the highest distinction and chief priest, killed Tiberius Gracchus as a private citizen, though Gracchus was only moderately unsettling the constitution. Shall we consuls endure Catiline, who longs to lay waste the whole world with slaughter and fire? I pass over those examples too remote in time, such as Gaius Servilius Ahala killing Spurius Maelius with his own hand for seeking revolution. Once, once there was such courage in this republic that brave men restrained a dangerous citizen with sharper punishments than the bitterest enemy. We have a decree of the Senate against you, Catiline, forceful and grave. The republic does not lack counsel or the authority of this order. We—we consuls, I say it openly—are failing it.\n\nSECTION 4\nCHAPTER 2\n\nThe Senate once decreed that the consul Lucius Opimius should see that the republic suffered no harm. Not a single night intervened. Gaius Gracchus, with his illustrious father, grandfather, and ancestors, was killed on certain suspicions of sedition; Marcus Fulvius, a former consul, was killed with his children. By a similar decree, the republic was entrusted to the consuls Gaius Marius and Lucius Valerius. Did death and the republic’s punishment then keep the tribune Lucius Saturninus and the praetor Gaius Servilius waiting even a day? Yet we have now allowed the edge of these men’s authority to grow blunt for twenty days. We possess a decree of that same kind, but shut away among the records, hidden like a sword in its sheath. Under that decree, Catiline, you should have been killed at once. You live—and live not to abandon your recklessness, but to strengthen it. Senators, I wish to be merciful. I wish not to seem lax amid such dangers to the republic. But now I condemn myself for idleness and worthlessness.\n\nSECTION 5\nA camp has been established in Italy, in the passes of Etruria, against the Roman people. The enemy’s numbers grow each day. Yet you see that camp’s commander and the enemy’s leader within our walls—indeed, in the Senate itself—daily devising some destruction of the republic from within. If I were now to order your arrest and execution, Catiline, I suppose I would have to fear not that all good men would call my action too late, but that someone would call it too cruel! Yet for a definite reason I have still not brought myself to do what should have been done long ago. You will be killed only when no one can be found so wicked, so corrupt, so like yourself that he will not admit it was justly done.\n\nSECTION 6\nWhile there remains a man who dares speak in your defense, I will leave you alive. Alive, however, as you are today: surrounded by the numerous, steadfast guards I have placed about you, with no freedom to stir against the state. Unseen by you, many eyes will spy on you and many ears will keep watch, as they have done so far.\n\nCHAPTER 3\n\nWhat further thing can you await, Catiline? Night itself cannot hide your wicked gatherings beneath its darkness; a private dwelling cannot imprison the voices of your conspiracy behind its walls. All is coming to light, all breaking free. Alter your purpose now; take my word for it, abandon murder and burning. On every side you are caught. We see your plans more brightly than the light of day. You may go through them with me now.\n\nSECTION 7\nRecall what I told the Senate on October 21: that on October 27, a day I named precisely, Gaius Manlius, the servant and accomplice of your reckless designs, would rise in arms. Did my prediction fail, Catiline, in that enormous, dreadful, scarcely believable event—or in the day itself, a still more astonishing matter? In that same Senate I announced your appointment of October 28 for slaughtering the leading citizens. Many of the state’s foremost men then fled Rome, more to thwart your plans than to save themselves. Can you deny that my protection and watchfulness hemmed you in on that date, leaving you powerless to act against the republic? This, even while you declared that the killing of us who stayed would satisfy you, though the rest had gone!\n\nSECTION 8\nAnd Praeneste? You believed you would capture it in an assault at night on November 1 itself. Did you find the colony made secure at my bidding, by the guards I stationed, the sentries and the watches? Nothing you do, nothing you devise, nothing you think escapes not merely my hearing but my sight and clear understanding.\n\nCHAPTER 4\n\nCome, revisit that earlier night with me. You will discover how much sharper my vigilance is for saving the republic than yours for destroying it. The night before last, I say, you went to Marcus Laeca’s house in the scythe makers’ district—I will not speak in riddles. Several partners in your madness and criminality met you there. Will you dare a denial? Why this silence? Deny it and I shall establish it: some of the men who joined you are here before my eyes in the Senate.\n\nSECTION 9\nImmortal gods! Where in the world are we? What republic do we possess? In what city do we live? Here, here among our own number, senators, in this most sacred and weighty council of the world, are men who contemplate the death of us all, the destruction of this city—indeed, of the whole world. As consul I see them and ask their opinions on public affairs; men who should have been cut down by the sword I have not yet wounded even with my voice! You were at Laeca’s that night, then, Catiline. You divided up Italy, decided where each man was to go, chose whom to leave in Rome and whom to take with you, assigned districts of the city for burning, and declared that you yourself were now about to leave. You said one small delay still held you back: I was alive. Two Roman knights were found to relieve you of that concern, promising to kill me in my own bed that very night, shortly before dawn.\n\nSECTION 10\nYour gathering had scarcely broken up when everything reached me. I fortified my home with stronger protection and made it secure; the visitors you sent with their morning greeting found themselves shut out. They were precisely the men whose coming at that hour I had predicted to many men of the highest standing.\n\nCHAPTER 5\n\nGo forward, then, Catiline, upon your chosen path. Out of the city at last! The gates are open to you: leave. Your camp under Manlius has waited for its commander far too long. Bring every follower of yours, or at least the greatest number you can. Empty Rome of their pollution. Let the city wall stand between us, and you will lift a heavy fear from me. Your life among us can continue no longer. I will neither bear it, nor endure it, nor allow it.\n\nSECTION 11\nGreat thanks are owed to the immortal gods, and to this very Jupiter the Upholder, the city’s most ancient guardian, because we have already escaped so often from a pestilence so foul, so dreadful, so hostile to the republic. The state’s very survival must not repeatedly be endangered by a single man. As long as you plotted against me while I was consul-elect, Catiline, I defended myself not with public guards but with private vigilance. When, at the last consular elections, you wished to kill me, the consul, on the Campus, together with your rivals, I crushed your criminal attempt with my friends’ protection and forces, without arousing any public disturbance. In short, whenever you struck at me, I resisted you through my own resources, although I saw that my destruction was bound up with a great calamity for the republic.\n\nSECTION 12\nNow the object of your open assault is the entire state. The gods’ temples, the houses of Rome, every citizen’s life, Italy in its entirety—you call them all to ruin and desolation. There is a first course, proper to the authority we hold and to the discipline our ancestors left us, which I do not yet dare adopt. Instead I shall choose a course less stern in punishment, more serviceable to the safety of all. Your execution would leave the other conspirators embedded in the state. Your departure, which I have urged upon you so long, would draw out of Rome that great cesspool of your adherents, so deadly to the republic.\n\nCHAPTER 6\n\nWhat now, Catiline?\n\nSECTION 13\nWill my order make you hesitate over an act you were already undertaking freely? An enemy is being commanded out of Rome by its consul. Is it exile, you ask? I give no command for that; consult me, however, and it is my advice. What joy remains for you here, Catiline? Outside your confederacy of ruined men, there is not a person in this city without fear or hatred of you. Name a stigma of shame in private life that has not branded your own existence; a private dishonor that has not fixed itself to your name. When were your eyes free of lust, your hands of crime, any part of your body of disgrace? Was there ever a young man you caught in corruption’s snares for whom you did not hold out the sword toward audacity, or the torch toward desire?\n\nSECTION 14\nAnd recently, when you had cleared the way for a new marriage through your former wife’s death, did you not heap upon that crime another incredible crime? I pass over it and readily allow it to go unspoken, so that this community need not seem to have produced so monstrous a deed or left it unpunished. I pass over the collapse of your fortunes, which you will feel hanging over you in full at the next Ides. I turn to matters that concern not the private shame of your vices, not your domestic difficulties and disgrace, but the whole republic and the life and safety of us all.\n\nSECTION 15\nCan this daylight, Catiline, or the air beneath this sky give you pleasure, when you know that no one here is ignorant of your standing armed in the assembly place on December 31, in the consulship of Lepidus and Tullus; of your preparing a band to kill the consuls and the leading citizens; of your crime and madness being thwarted not by any change of heart or fear of your own, but by the Fortune of the Roman people? I leave those matters aside now—for your later deeds are neither few nor hidden. How often you have tried to kill me as consul-elect, and again as consul! How many thrusts, aimed so that escape seemed impossible, have I evaded with a slight movement, with a turn of the body, as they say! You do nothing, achieve nothing, and yet you never cease to try and desire it.\n\nSECTION 16\nHow often that dagger has been wrested from your hands! How often it has slipped and fallen by some chance! I do not know by what rites you have consecrated and dedicated it, that you think it must be planted in a consul’s body.\n\nCHAPTER 7\n\nBut what sort of life is yours now? I will speak to you as though moved not by the hatred I owe you, but by the pity you do not deserve. A little while ago you entered the Senate. Out of this great gathering, out of all your friends and associates, who greeted you? If this has happened to no one in human memory, do you wait for the insult of spoken words when you have been crushed by the weightiest judgment of silence? When your arrival emptied those benches, when every former consul—men you have so often marked for death—left that stretch of seats bare and vacant as soon as you sat down, with what spirit do you think you should endure it?\n\nSECTION 17\nWere my household slaves, by Hercules, as afraid of me as your fellow citizens are of you, I should consider my home no place to remain. Must you not think the same of Rome? Were my citizens to regard me, even unjustly, with such deep suspicion and offense, I would choose to vanish from their sight rather than meet their united hostile gaze. You know from your own crimes that the hatred of everyone is rightful and long overdue. Yet you hesitate to withdraw from the presence of those whose hearts and understanding you wound? Suppose your father and mother hated and feared you, and no argument could reconcile them. Surely you would go somewhere beyond their view. Your country now stands in their place, the parent shared by all of us. She hates you, fears you, has long believed your sole intention to be her murder. Will her authority command no reverence, her judgment no obedience, her might no fear?\n\nSECTION 18\nShe addresses you, Catiline, and in a sense speaks without a voice: “For years no crime has arisen except through you, no outrage without you. You alone have been free to murder many citizens without punishment, to harass and plunder our allies. You have had the strength not merely to disregard laws and courts, but to overturn and break them. Those earlier deeds, unbearable though they were, I bore as best I could. But now that all of me should live in fear because of you alone; that every sound should make me fear Catiline; that no plot against me should seem beyond your criminal nature—this cannot be borne. Therefore leave, and take this fear away from me: if it is well founded, so that I am not crushed; if false, so that at last I may cease to fear.”\n\nSECTION 19\nCHAPTER 8\n\nIf these were your country’s words, as I have imagined them, ought her plea not prevail even without force to carry it through? Consider also your volunteering for custody. To dispel suspicion, you said, you wished to reside with Manius Lepidus. He would not accept you. You then had the audacity to come even to me, asking that my house should serve to guard you. I answered that sharing a house with you could in no way be safe for me: sharing a city already put me in grave danger. Off you went to Quintus Metellus, the praetor. He rejected you too, and you moved to your friend Marcus Metellus, that admirable man! Evidently you expected him to be a most attentive keeper, a most penetrating detector of suspicious acts, and a most valiant agent of punishment. But how remote from chains and prison should we keep one who has already pronounced himself fit for detention?\n\nSECTION 20\nSo, Catiline, if you cannot meet your end with composure, what makes you reluctant to seek some other country? Save this life of yours from the many penalties it justly owes, and give it over to the solitude of flight.\n\n“Refer the matter to the Senate,” you tell me. That is what you request; should the order decree its wish for your exile, you say you will comply. I shall make no such reference: that would run against my practice. Nevertheless you shall learn their opinion of you. Out of Rome, Catiline! Release the state from terror. Depart into exile, if exile is the word you are waiting to hear. Well? Are you listening, observing the silence of these men? They let you go. They utter nothing. Their unspoken will lies plain before you: why wait for the authority of their speech?\n\nSECTION 21\nHad I said the same to this excellent young Publius Sestius, or to the courageous Marcus Marcellus, the Senate would already, and with perfect justice, have laid violent hands on me, the consul, in this very temple. But concerning you, Catiline, their stillness is approval; their permission is a decree; their silence is a cry. Nor is it only these men, whose authority is evidently dear to you, whose lives are worthless to you. It is also those Roman knights, most honorable and excellent men, and the other courageous citizens surrounding the Senate. You could see their numbers, understand their zeal, and hear their voices a little while ago. I have long scarcely restrained their hands and weapons from you; I will easily persuade those same men to escort you to the gates as you leave the city you have long sought to devastate.\n\nSECTION 22\nCHAPTER 9\n\nBut why do I speak like this? As though anything could subdue you; as though you could ever amend your ways, contemplate escape, or form a thought of exile! If only the gods would put that purpose in your mind! I see, of course, the tempest of hostility hanging over me if fright at my words should resolve you upon exile. Perhaps not today, when your crimes are fresh in memory, but in the years to come. I accept the price, so long as the disaster falls upon you privately and is cut away from the public danger. Yet we cannot ask that conscience over your vices should move you, legal penalties make you afraid, or the state’s circumstances bring you to yield. Nothing in your character, Catiline, allows shame to turn you from dishonor, fear from peril, or judgment from frenzy.\n\nSECTION 23\nLeave, therefore, as I have said again and again. If you wish to heap unpopularity on me, whom you proclaim your enemy, take the direct road to exile. Were you to do it, men’s talk would be almost more than I could bear; the burden of hostility almost more than I could sustain, if a consul’s command had sent you into exile. Prefer to further my renown and glory instead? Then depart with your savage troop of criminals. Go to Manlius. Stir up the ruined citizens, divide yourself from the loyal, wage war on your homeland, give yourself to the delight of godless banditry. Let it appear that I invited you to your own people, not that I banished you among strangers.\n\nSECTION 24\nYet why should I invite you, when I know you have already sent men ahead to wait for you under arms at Forum Aurelium; when I know you have fixed and agreed a day with Manlius; when I know you have even sent ahead that silver eagle, for which a criminal shrine was established in your house, and which I trust will bring death and destruction to you and all your followers? Could you endure any longer without the eagle you used to worship as you set out for slaughter, from whose altars you so often carried that impious right hand to the murder of citizens?\n\nSECTION 25\nCHAPTER 10\n\nAt length you will reach the place toward which that raging, uncontrolled appetite has long swept you. Far from grief, this affair gives you an unbelievable delight. For this madness nature brought you forth, choice schooled you, and fortune kept you alive. Peace was never your desire; even war you never wanted unless it was wicked. Now you have secured a company of criminals, made up of men utterly ruined, forsaken not simply by all their fortunes but by their last hope.\n\nSECTION 26\nThere, what happiness will be yours! In what joy you will exult, in what pleasure run wild, when the multitude around you contains no good man for your ears to hear or your eyes to see! It was to cultivate that life that you practiced your celebrated exertions: lying upon the ground, not merely in pursuit of illicit sex but in preparation for a crime; foregoing sleep, not merely to ambush sleeping husbands but to prey upon the property of the peaceful. There is your theater for displaying that famous capacity to suffer hunger, cold, and destitution of every kind. Soon enough you will feel those privations wear you out.\n\nSECTION 27\nThis much I achieved when I kept you from the consulship: you could assail the republic as an exile rather than torment it as consul, and the criminal enterprise you undertook would be called banditry rather than war.\n\nCHAPTER 11\n\nNow, senators, to avert and turn aside an almost just complaint from my country against me, hear carefully, I beg you, what I will say, and lodge it deep in your hearts and minds. If my country, far dearer to me than my own life, if all Italy, if the whole republic were to address me: “Marcus Tullius, what are you doing? Will you permit this man to leave—one you have discovered to be an enemy, whom you see about to lead a war, whom you know the enemy camp awaits as commander, the author of crime, the chief of the conspiracy, the summoner of slaves and desperate citizens—so that you seem not to have let him out of the city, but let him loose upon it? Will you not order him taken into chains, dragged to his death, sacrificed to the supreme punishment? What, then, holds you back? The practice of our ancestors?\n\nSECTION 28\n“But in this republic even private citizens have very often punished dangerous citizens with death. Or the laws passed concerning the punishment of Roman citizens? But those who have deserted the republic have never retained citizens’ rights in this city. Or do you fear the hatred of posterity? A splendid repayment you make to the Roman people, who raised you, a man who owed his reputation to himself, without the recommendation of ancestors, so early through every rank of office to the highest authority, if fear of hatred or some danger makes you neglect your fellow citizens’ safety!\n\nSECTION 29\n“But if hatred is to be feared, hatred earned by sternness and courage is not to be feared more than hatred earned by idleness and worthlessness. When Italy is devastated by war, cities are ravaged, homes burn, do you not think you too will blaze in the fire of hatred?”\n\nCHAPTER 12\n\nTo these most sacred words of the republic, and to the thoughts of those who share them, I will make a brief reply. Senators, had I judged Catiline’s execution the best course, I would not have granted that gladiator the use of a single hour of life. If our greatest men and most illustrious citizens did not stain themselves with the blood of Saturninus, the Gracchi, Flaccus, and many earlier men, but rather gained honor, I certainly had no need to fear that killing this murderer of citizens would send any hatred against me down to posterity. Even if that hatred threatened me most of all, my mind has always been such that I considered hatred earned by courage to be glory, not hatred.\n\nSECTION 30\nThere are, however, senators within this very order who either fail to perceive what threatens or pretend not to perceive what they see. Lenient judgments from them fed Catiline’s expectations. Their refusal to believe made his newborn conspiracy strong. Such men’s authority would have persuaded many others, the uninformed no less than the wicked, to call action against him the deed of a cruel tyrant. Now I know that, once he arrives at Manlius’s camp as he purposes, only a fool could fail to see the conspiracy, and only a scoundrel fail to acknowledge it. I know also that killing him alone could push back the state’s pestilence for a while, never put it down forever. Let him depart of himself, lead out his adherents, and assemble there the remaining wrecks of men from every direction: then we shall quench and destroy not merely this fully matured plague upon the republic, but the root and seed from which all our evils spring.\n\nSECTION 31\nCHAPTER 13\n\nFor a long time now, senators, we have lived amid these dangers and conspiratorial plots. Yet somehow the ripeness of all these crimes, of this long-standing madness and recklessness, has burst forth in the season of my consulship. If this one man alone is removed from so great a band of robbers, we may seem relieved of care and fear for a little while; but the danger will remain, enclosed deep in the veins and entrails of the republic. Often, when people gravely ill are tossed by heat and fever, a drink of cold water seems at first to relieve them; then they suffer far more violently and severely. So this disease in the republic, relieved by his punishment, will worsen more fiercely while the others live.\n\nSECTION 32\nLet the corrupt depart, then, and draw apart from the good. Let them meet in one place. Finally, as I have repeatedly urged, put a wall between them and us. No more plots against a consul in his house; no more encircling the city praetor’s judgment seat; no more swords besieging the Senate House; no more incendiary darts and torches readied to burn Rome. Let every man’s political purpose be inscribed upon his brow. Senators, I give you this pledge: the consuls will show such watchfulness, you such authority, the knights such courage, all loyal citizens such concord, that after Catiline’s departure you will see every design laid bare, brought to light, overthrown, and punished.\n\nSECTION 33\nGo, Catiline, with these omens to a war against piety and law. Let supreme safety come to the republic, destruction and disaster to you, annihilation to those joined with you in every crime and assault upon their country. And you, Jupiter—whom Romulus established under the auspices that founded Rome, whom we justly name the Upholder of our city and our power—will bar this man and his confederates from your own temples and every other shrine, from Rome’s dwellings and ramparts, from all its citizens’ possessions and lives. Against men hostile to the loyal, enemies of their homeland, brigands of Italy, linked in a pact of crimes and a fellowship of wickedness, you will exact everlasting punishment, in life and after death.\n\n### Speech 2\n\nSECTION 1\nCHAPTER 1\n\nAt last, citizens, we have driven Lucius Catiline from the city—or let him go, or seen him on his way with our words as he left of his own accord: Catiline, raging with audacity, breathing crime, plotting our country’s destruction in defiance of all that is sacred, threatening you and this city with fire and sword. He has gone, departed, escaped, broken out. No longer will that monstrous, unnatural creature contrive the ruin of these very walls from within them. And this much is beyond dispute: we have defeated the one leader of this civil war. No longer will that dagger move among our ribs; no longer will we live in terror on the Field of Mars, in the Forum, in the Senate House, or even within the walls of our own homes. He was dislodged from his position when he was driven from the city. Now, with no one to hamper us, we shall fight an open, regular war against an enemy. We have certainly ruined the man and won a splendid victory by forcing him out of secret ambush into open banditry.\n\nSECTION 2\n\nHe did not carry away a bloodied blade, as he wished; he went out leaving us alive; we wrenched the weapon from his hands; he left the citizens unharmed and the city standing. How utterly crushed and broken with grief do you think he must be? He lies prostrate now, citizens, and feels himself struck down and cast aside. Surely he often turns his eyes back toward this city, mourning that it has been torn from his jaws. The city itself seems to me to rejoice that it has vomited out so deadly a plague and hurled it beyond its gates.\n\nSECTION 3\nCHAPTER 2\n\nYet if anyone has the spirit everyone ought to have, and fiercely condemns me for the very thing in which my speech exults and triumphs—for letting so deadly an enemy go instead of arresting him—the fault is not mine, citizens, but the times’. Lucius Catiline should long ago have been put to death and subjected to the severest punishment. Ancestral custom, the stern authority of my office, and the republic itself demanded that of me. But how many people do you think there were who would not believe what I reported? How many were too foolish to recognize it? How many actually defended him? How many favored him out of their own wickedness? If I had judged that removing him would ward off every danger from you, I would long ago have removed Lucius Catiline, at the risk not merely of public hatred but of my life.\n\nSECTION 4\n\nBut I saw that, even then, before the facts had been proved to all of you, if I punished him with the death he deserved, the hatred stirred against me would prevent me from pursuing his accomplices. I therefore brought matters to this point: you could fight openly once you plainly saw your enemy. How much I think we need fear that enemy outside the city, citizens, you may gather from this: I am actually distressed that so few went out with him. If only he had led all his forces away! He took Tongilius from me, whose lover he had become while the boy still wore his youth’s bordered toga; he took Publicius and Minucius, whose tavern debts could cause no disturbance in the republic. But the men he left behind—what men, with what debts, what influence, what noble birth!\n\nSECTION 5\nCHAPTER 3\n\nAnd so I hold that army in utter contempt beside our Gallic legions, the troops Quintus Metellus has levied in the territories of Picenum and the Gallic district, and the forces we are raising every day. His army is a gathering of desperate old men, dissolute country dwellers, bankrupt farmers, and men who preferred to default on their court appearances rather than desert that army. Show them not merely our army’s battle line but even a praetor’s summons, and they will collapse. I wish he had taken away with him these soldiers of his whom I see flitting through the Forum, standing beside the Senate House, even entering the Senate, gleaming with perfume and resplendent in purple. If they remain here, remember: it is less that army we must fear than these men who have deserted it. And they are all the more alarming because they know I understand their intentions, yet remain unmoved.\n\nSECTION 6\n\nI see to whom Apulia has been assigned, who holds Etruria, who Picenum, who the Gallic district, who has claimed for himself these murderous ambushes and fires within the city. They know that every plan made the night before last has reached me; I laid them bare in the Senate yesterday. Catiline himself took fright and fled. What are these men waiting for? They are gravely mistaken if they hope my former leniency will last forever.\n\nCHAPTER 4\n\nI have now gained what I was waiting for: that all of you should plainly see that a conspiracy has been formed against the republic—unless, indeed, someone thinks that men like Catiline do not think as Catiline does. There is no room left for leniency; the situation itself demands severity. One concession I will still make: let them leave, let them go, rather than let poor Catiline waste away with longing for them. I will show them the road. He set out along the Aurelian Way; if they choose to hurry, they will catch him by evening.\n\nSECTION 7\n\nHow fortunate the republic, if it can indeed expel this cesspool of the city! With Catiline alone drained away, by Hercules, the republic seems to me relieved and revived. What evil, what crime can anyone imagine or conceive that he has not devised? What poisoner in all Italy, what gladiator, what bandit, what assassin, what parricide, what forger of wills, what swindler, what debauchee, what spendthrift, what adulterer, what disgraced woman, what corrupter of youth, what corrupted or ruined person can be found who would not admit to having lived on the closest terms with Catiline? What murder in these recent years has been committed without him? What unspeakable sexual outrage has not been brought about through him?\n\nSECTION 8\n\nAnd who ever possessed such powers of seducing the young? Some he himself loved most shamefully; for others he most disgracefully catered to their passions. To some he promised the satisfaction of their lusts, to others the death of their parents, offering not only to urge them on but to help them. And now, how suddenly he had gathered a vast number of ruined men, not only from the city but from the countryside! Not a single man burdened with debt, not merely in Rome but in any corner of all Italy, escaped being enlisted by him in this incredible alliance of crime.\n\nSECTION 9\nCHAPTER 5\n\nTo see how varied his pursuits were in their different spheres, consider this: no one in a gladiatorial school with a little extra daring for crime fails to claim the closest intimacy with Catiline; no one on the stage a little more frivolous and worthless fails to recall that he was almost Catiline’s close companion. Yet this same man, schooled by the practice of sexual outrage and crime to endure cold, hunger, thirst, and sleepless nights, was praised by his followers as courageous, though he squandered on lust and reckless daring the resources of hard work and the instruments of virtue.\n\nSECTION 10\n\nIf his companions follow him, if these infamous herds of desperate men leave the city, how blessed we shall be, how fortunate the republic, how glorious the distinction of my consulship! For these men’s desires are no longer moderate; their recklessness is no longer human or bearable. They think of nothing but murder, arson, plunder. They have squandered their inheritances and mortgaged their fortunes; their means failed them long ago, their credit has begun to fail them lately. Yet the same appetite they had in their abundance endures. If, amid their wine and gambling, they sought only revels and prostitutes, they would indeed be beyond hope, but still bearable. But who can bear this: idle men plotting against the bravest, fools against the wisest, drunkards against the sober, sleepers against the watchful? There they recline at their feasts, embracing shameless women, languid with wine, stuffed with food, garlanded with flowers, smeared with perfume, enfeebled by debauchery, belching out talk of murdering decent men and burning down the city.\n\nSECTION 11\n\nI am confident that some doom hangs over them, and that the punishment long owed to their wickedness, worthlessness, crime, and lust is either already upon them or surely drawing near. If my consulship removes these men, since it cannot cure them, it will have extended the republic’s life not by some little span but by many centuries. There is no nation we need greatly fear, no king who can make war on the Roman people. Abroad, all has been pacified on land and sea through one man’s courage. A war at home remains: the ambush is within, the danger is shut within, the enemy is within. We must contend with extravagance, with madness, with crime. In this war, citizens, I declare myself your leader; I accept the enmity of ruined men. Whatever can be healed I will heal by any means; whatever must be cut away I will not allow to remain and destroy the state. So let them leave, or keep quiet, or, if they remain both in the city and in the same frame of mind, await what they deserve.\n\nSECTION 12\nCHAPTER 6\n\nYet there are people, citizens, who say I have driven Catiline out. If I could achieve that with a word, I would drive out the very people who say so. Evidently this timid, even excessively modest man could not endure the consul’s voice: the moment he was ordered into exile, he obeyed! Why, yesterday, after I had nearly been murdered in my own home, I summoned the Senate to the temple of Jupiter the Upholder and laid the whole matter before the assembled senators. When Catiline arrived, what senator addressed him? Who greeted him? Who so much as looked at him as a ruined citizen rather than a most ruthless enemy? Indeed, the leading men of that body left the stretch of benches he approached utterly bare and empty.\n\nSECTION 13\n\nThen I, that ferocious consul who drives citizens into exile with a word, asked Catiline whether or not he had attended the nighttime meeting at Marcus Laeca’s house. When this utterly brazen man, convicted by his own conscience, at first kept silent, I exposed the rest. I explained what he had done that night, where he had been, what he had decided for the next night, and how he had laid out his plan for the whole war. When he faltered, when he was caught, I asked why he hesitated to set out for the place he had long been preparing to go, since I knew that weapons, axes, fasces, trumpets, military standards, and that silver eagle for which he had even made a shrine in his own home had been sent ahead.\n\nSECTION 14\n\nWas I driving into exile a man whom I could see had already embarked on war? For of course that centurion Manlius, who has pitched camp in the territory of Faesulae, has declared war on the Roman people on his own account; of course that camp is not now awaiting Catiline as its commander; and Catiline, driven into exile, is on his way to Massilia, as they say, not to that camp!\n\nCHAPTER 7\n\nWhat a wretched predicament, not merely to govern the republic but even to preserve it! Suppose now that Lucius Catiline, hemmed in and weakened by my planning, my labors, and the dangers I have faced, suddenly takes fright, changes his mind, deserts his followers, abandons his plan for war, and turns aside from this course of crime and warfare onto the road of flight and exile. Then, people will say, he was not stripped by me of the weapons of his recklessness, not stunned and terrified by my vigilance, not driven from his hopes and his undertaking, but an innocent man, never convicted, driven into exile by a consul’s force and threats. And there will be people who, if he does this, want him regarded not as wicked but as pitiable, and me not as the most vigilant consul but as the cruelest tyrant!\n\nSECTION 15\n\nIt is worth my while, citizens, to face this storm of false and unjust hatred, provided that the danger of this horrible, criminal war is warded off from you. Let people say I drove him out, so long as he goes into exile. But believe me, he is not going to go. Never, citizens, will I pray to the immortal gods that, merely to relieve the hatred against me, you should hear of Lucius Catiline leading an enemy army and ranging about in arms. Yet within three days you will hear it. And I am far more afraid that I may one day be hated for having let him go rather than for having driven him out. But when there are men who call his departure an expulsion, what would those same men say if he had been put to death?\n\nSECTION 16\n\nAnd yet those who keep saying that Catiline is going to Massilia are not so much complaining of it as fearing it. Not one of them is so compassionate that he would not rather have Catiline go to Manlius than to the people of Massilia. For his part, by Hercules, even if he had never before thought of what he is now doing, he would still rather be killed as a bandit than live an exile. As it is, nothing so far has happened against his own wishes and designs except that he left Rome with us still alive. Let us wish him into exile rather than complain of it.\n\nSECTION 17\nCHAPTER 8\n\nBut why do we speak so long of a single enemy—and an enemy who now admits he is one, whom I do not fear because a wall stands between us, as I have always wished—while saying nothing of those who conceal their purpose, who remain in Rome, who are here among us? If it can possibly be done, I am less eager to punish these men than to heal them for their own sake and reconcile them to the republic. Nor do I see why that cannot be done, if they will now listen to me. I will explain to you, citizens, the kinds of men from whom those forces are drawn; then I will bring each kind whatever remedy my counsel and my words can offer.\n\nSECTION 18\n\nOne kind consists of men who have great debts, but still greater possessions, and whose love of those possessions makes it impossible for them to clear their debts. These men present a most respectable appearance—they are wealthy, after all—but their intentions and their cause are utterly shameless. Can you be richly furnished and supplied with lands, houses, silver, slaves, and property of every kind, yet hesitate to subtract from your holdings and add to your credit? What are you waiting for? War? Well then, do you suppose that in the devastation of everything your possessions will be sacred and inviolable? Or are you waiting for new debt ledgers, wiped clean? Those who expect them from Catiline are mistaken. Through my good offices, new ledgers are being brought out—but auction ledgers. Indeed, there is no other way for those property owners to save themselves. Had they been willing to do this sooner, instead of that supremely foolish attempt to pit the income of their estates against their interest payments, we would find them both wealthier men and better citizens. But I think we have least to fear from these people: either they can be brought to change their minds, or, if they persist, they seem to me more likely to offer prayers against the republic than to take up arms.\n\nSECTION 19\nCHAPTER 9\n\nThe second kind consists of men who, though oppressed by debt, nevertheless look for mastery. They want supreme power and believe that in a disordered republic they can attain the offices they despair of attaining while it is at peace. These men, it seems to me, should be given one piece of advice—the very same as all the rest: abandon the hope of achieving what they attempt. First of all, I myself am watchful, present, and providing for the republic. Then there is great spirit among decent men, great harmony between the orders, a vast multitude, and, besides, great forces of soldiers. Finally, the immortal gods will bring their aid in person to this unconquered people, this illustrious empire, this most beautiful city, against so mighty an onslaught of crime. But even if these men had already attained what they desire in their utter madness, do they hope to become consuls or dictators or even kings amid the city’s ashes and the blood of its citizens—the very things their criminal, godless minds have coveted? Do they not see that they desire something which, if they attained it, they would inevitably have to yield to some runaway slave or gladiator?\n\nSECTION 20\n\nThe third kind is advanced in years, yet still strong from training. Among them is that Manlius whom Catiline now succeeds. These men come from the colonies Sulla established. I consider those colonies as a whole to be made up of excellent citizens and very brave men; nevertheless, these particular settlers flaunted their unexpected, sudden wealth with excessive expense and insolence. Building as though they were rich, delighting in choice estates, large households of slaves, and elaborate banquets, they sank so deeply into debt that, if they are to be saved, Sulla must be summoned from the underworld for them. They have also swept along a number of poor and needy country people into that same hope of the old plundering. I place both groups in the same class of predators and pillagers, but I give them this warning: stop raving and dreaming of proscriptions and dictatorships. So deep a brand of pain from those times has been burned into the state that, I believe, not merely human beings but even cattle would no longer tolerate such things.\n\nSECTION 21\nCHAPTER 10\n\nThe fourth kind is a decidedly mixed, varied, and turbulent collection: men long weighed down, who never rise to the surface, who stagger under old debts incurred partly through idleness, partly through bad management, partly also through extravagance. Many of them, exhausted by commitments to appear in court, lawsuits, and the forced sale of their goods, are said to be making their way from both city and countryside to that camp. I consider them less fierce soldiers than obstinate defaulters. If they cannot stand, let them fall as soon as possible—but so quietly that not merely the state but even their nearest neighbors feel nothing. For I cannot understand why, if they cannot live honorably, they should wish to die in disgrace, or why they think it will hurt less to perish with many others than alone.\n\nSECTION 22\n\nThe fifth kind consists of parricides, assassins, and, in short, criminals of every sort. I do not call them back from Catiline: they cannot be torn away from him, and by all means let them perish as bandits, since there are so many that the prison cannot hold them. The last kind, last not merely in the count but in their very character and way of life, is Catiline’s own: men of his selection—no, men from his embrace and his bosom. You see them with their hair combed smooth, gleaming, either beardless or with carefully tended beards, in tunics with long sleeves and hems down to their heels, draped in sails rather than togas. All the energy of their lives, all their labor in keeping awake, is expended on dinners that last until dawn.\n\nSECTION 23\n\nIn these herds move all the gamblers, all the adulterers, all the filthy and shameless. These boys, so charming and dainty, have learned not only to love and be loved, to dance and sing, but also to brandish daggers and scatter poisons. Unless they leave, unless they perish, be certain that, even if Catiline dies, this will be a seedbed of Catilines in the republic. Yet what do these wretches have in mind? Will they take their little women with them to the camp? But how will they manage without them, especially with nights like these already upon us? And how will they bear the Apennines, the frost and snow there? Unless they think they will bear winter more easily because they have learned to dance naked at banquets!\n\nSECTION 24\nCHAPTER 11\n\nWhat a war to tremble at, when Catiline will have this cohort of prostitutes as his bodyguard! Now, citizens, deploy your garrisons and your armies against these splendid forces of Catiline. First set your consuls and commanders against that worn-out, wounded gladiator; then lead out the flower and strength of all Italy against that cast-up, crippled band of shipwrecked men. The cities of the colonies and municipalities will answer Catiline’s wooded hillocks. Nor need I compare the rest of your resources, equipment, and defenses with that bandit’s poverty and destitution.\n\nSECTION 25\n\nBut let us leave aside the things with which we are supplied and he is not—the Senate, the Roman knights, the city, the treasury, the revenues, all Italy, every province, foreign nations. Leaving these aside, if we choose to set the opposing causes themselves against each other, we can understand from that alone how utterly beaten they are. On this side a sense of shame fights, on that, insolence; here chastity, there sexual outrage; here good faith, there fraud; here reverence for duty, there crime; here steadfastness, there frenzy; here honor, there disgrace; here self-restraint, there lust. Here, in short, justice, moderation, courage, wisdom—all the virtues—contend with injustice, extravagance, cowardice, recklessness, with all the vices. Finally, abundance clashes with want, sound judgment with ruinous judgment, sanity with madness, and, last of all, good hope with despair of everything. In such a contest and battle, even if human zeal were to fail, would not the immortal gods themselves compel so many and such great vices to be overcome by these glorious virtues?\n\nSECTION 26\nCHAPTER 12\n\nSince this is so, citizens, defend your homes with watches and guards, as I have told you before. I have taken thought and made provision for the city to be adequately protected without fear on your part and without any upheaval. All your fellow citizens in colonies and municipalities have been informed by me of Catiline’s nighttime departure and will easily defend their towns and territories. The gladiators, whom he thought would be his most reliable force, though better disposed than some of the patricians, will nevertheless be kept under our control. Quintus Metellus, whom I sent ahead into the Gallic district and Picenum in anticipation of this, will either crush the man or thwart all his movements and attempts. As for the remaining measures to be decided, expedited, and carried out, I shall now lay them before the Senate, which, as you see, is being summoned.\n\nSECTION 27\n\nNow I want those who have remained in the city—or rather, those whom Catiline has left in the city to destroy it and all of you—to be warned again and again: enemies though they are, they were born citizens. If anyone has thought my leniency too lax until now, it has been waiting for what was hidden to burst into the open. For the rest, I can no longer forget that this is my country, that I am these people’s consul, that I must either live with them or die for them. There is no guard at the gates, no one lying in wait on the road. If any wish to leave, I can turn a blind eye. But whoever makes a move in the city, whoever I catch not merely in an act but in any undertaking or attempt against the country, will learn that in this city there are watchful consuls, outstanding magistrates, a courageous Senate, weapons, and a prison, which our ancestors intended to punish heinous and flagrant crimes.\n\nSECTION 28\nCHAPTER 13\n\nAnd all this will be done in such a way that the greatest issues are settled with the least disturbance, the greatest dangers with no upheaval, and the greatest and cruelest civil war within our own land in human memory is quelled with me alone, in civilian dress, as leader and commander. I shall manage it, citizens, so that, if it can possibly be done, not even a single wicked man in this city will suffer the punishment of his crime. But if the force of open recklessness, if the danger hanging over our country necessarily draws me away from this lenient disposition, I shall certainly accomplish what, in so great and treacherous a war, seems scarcely even to be hoped for: no good man will perish, and the punishment of a few will secure the safety of you all.\n\nSECTION 29\n\nThese promises I make you, citizens, relying neither on my own wisdom nor on human counsels, but on many unmistakable signs from the immortal gods. Under their guidance I have come to this hope and resolve. No longer, as they once did, do they defend us from afar against a distant, foreign enemy: here in our midst, with their divine power and aid, they defend their own temples and the city’s dwellings. You, citizens, must pray to them, worship them, implore them to defend this city, which they have willed to be most beautiful, most flourishing, and most powerful, against the godless crime of its most desperate citizens, now that all the enemy’s forces on land and sea have been overcome.\n\n### Speech 3\n\nSECTION 1\nCHAPTER 1\n\nCitizens, today you behold the republic restored and kept safe for you: every one of your lives, your goods and fortunes, your wives and children, and this home of our glorious empire, this supremely fortunate and beautiful city. The immortal gods’ boundless love for you, together with my toil, my planning, and the dangers I have faced, has snatched it from fire and sword, almost from the jaws of fate itself.\n\nSECTION 2\nThe days on which we are saved bring us no less joy and distinction than those on which we are born. Rescue has a certain gladness; birth an uncertain prospect. We come into being without awareness, but know delight in being preserved. Since affection and renown have raised this city’s founder among the deathless gods, surely the man who preserved that same city, already founded and grown great, ought to receive honor from you and your descendants. For we have quenched the fires all but laid beneath and about the entire city—its temples, its sanctuaries, its homes and walls. We have beaten back the swords unsheathed against the republic and thrust their points away from your throats.\n\nSECTION 3\nSince through my efforts these things have been brought to light, laid bare, and established before the Senate, I will now briefly explain them to you. You who do not yet know and are waiting to hear may learn how great and how unmistakable they were, and how they were tracked down and exposed.\n\nFirst, when Catiline burst out of the city a few days ago, leaving behind in Rome his partners in crime, the fiercest leaders of this monstrous war, I kept constant watch and took precautions, citizens, to find how we might remain safe amid plots so vast and so deeply hidden.\n\nCHAPTER 2\n\nFor at the time when I was driving Catiline from the city—I no longer fear the resentment caused by that expression, since I have more reason to fear blame for letting him leave alive—when, I say, I wanted him removed beyond the city’s bounds, I thought either that the remaining band of conspirators would leave with him or that those who stayed would be feeble and powerless without him.\n\nSECTION 4\nWhen I saw that the men I knew to be most ablaze with criminal madness had stayed in Rome and were living among us, I devoted every night and day to watching and discovering their acts and designs. The crime was so immense as to pass belief; my words would win too little credit from your ears. I therefore sought to lay hold of the facts themselves, so that you would turn your minds to your safety once your eyes had seen the wrongdoing. Then I learned that Publius Lentulus had approached the Allobroges’ envoys to stir up war beyond the Alps and an uprising in Gaul. They had been dispatched home to their people in Gaul, with a visit to Catiline on the same journey, carrying letters and instructions. Titus Volturcius had been attached as their companion and entrusted with a letter to Catiline. Here, I thought, was the chance I had always prayed for from the gods, though it was hardest of all to obtain: the whole affair could be caught in clear proof, not by me alone, but by you and by the Senate.\n\nSECTION 5\nYesterday, therefore, I summoned the praetors Lucius Flaccus and Gaius Pomptinus, men of the greatest courage and devotion to the republic. I explained the matter and told them what I wanted done. With their noble and distinguished commitment to the republic, they undertook the task without objection or a moment’s delay. At dusk they secretly reached the Mulvian Bridge and took up positions in nearby country houses, dividing their forces so that the Tiber and the bridge lay between them. They themselves had brought many brave men there without arousing anyone’s suspicion; I too had sent a number of chosen young men, armed with swords, from the prefecture of Reate, whose services I constantly employ in the republic’s defense.\n\nSECTION 6\nMeanwhile, with the third watch nearly over, the Allobroges’ representatives, accompanied by Volturcius and a large following, began to cross the Mulvian Bridge. They were attacked. Swords came out on their side and on ours. Only the praetors knew the business; everyone else was ignorant of it.\n\nCHAPTER 3\n\nFlaccus and Pomptinus then intervened to still the fighting that had broken out. Every letter carried by the party was handed over to the praetors, its seal unbroken. The men themselves were arrested and brought before me as dawn was breaking. At once I summoned Cimber Gabinius, the most wicked contriver of all these crimes, while he still suspected nothing. Lucius Statilius was called next, then Cethegus. Lentulus came last of all, presumably because, against his usual habit, writing letters had kept him awake the previous night.\n\nSECTION 7\nThe foremost and most distinguished men of our community had heard the news and gathered in large numbers at my house early that morning. They thought I should open the letters before taking them to the Senate: if nothing were found, I might seem to have recklessly plunged the community into such alarm. I refused to withhold the whole matter, untouched, from the public council when the public safety was at stake. Even if what had been reported to me had not been found, citizens, I did not think that amid such dangers to the republic I had to fear being too vigilant. As you saw, I swiftly assembled a crowded Senate.\n\nSECTION 8\nAt the same time, following the Allobroges’ warning, I sent the praetor Gaius Sulpicius, a courageous man, to bring out whatever weapons Cethegus might have in his house. He brought away an immense number of daggers and swords.\n\nCHAPTER 4\n\nI brought Volturcius in without the Gauls, gave him the state’s pledge of immunity as the Senate directed, and urged him to disclose his knowledge without fear. Scarcely recovered from his great alarm, he said that he carried instructions and a letter from Publius Lentulus to Catiline. Catiline was to enlist the help of slaves and bring his army to Rome with all speed. The design was this: when they had set the city alight on every side, according to the allotted plan, and made an unbounded massacre of its people, he should be at hand to catch the fugitives and join the leaders operating within Rome.\n\nSECTION 9\nNext the Gauls entered. Publius Lentulus, Cethegus, and Statilius, they reported, had bound themselves by oath and entrusted letters for their nation to them. Those men, with Lucius Cassius, had prescribed the swiftest possible dispatch of cavalry to Italy; infantry would not be lacking to the conspirators themselves. Lentulus had given them his assurance from the Sibylline oracles and the diviners’ answers: he was the third Cornelius, the man who must inherit kingship and dominion over Rome. Cinna had preceded him, and Sulla. This year, he had further said, was appointed by fate for the city’s and empire’s end: the tenth year following the Vestal Virgins’ acquittal, the twentieth following the Capitol’s burning.\n\nSECTION 10\nThey also reported the disagreement between Cethegus and the rest. Lentulus and the others wanted the massacre and the city’s burning to take place at the Saturnalia; Cethegus considered that far too long a wait.\n\nCHAPTER 5\n\nTo be brief, citizens, we ordered the letters said to have been given by each man brought out. Cethegus saw his first and recognized the seal. We severed the cord and read. In his own hand he had written to the Allobroges’ council and people, promising to fulfill his assurances to their envoys and asking them in turn to fulfill what the envoys had undertaken for him. Earlier he had offered some answer about the daggers and swords discovered in his possession: he had always, he said, been a connoisseur of fine ironwork. Once his letter was read, the knowledge of guilt broke and crushed him into sudden silence. Statilius was brought in. He acknowledged both the seal and his handwriting; a letter of much the same purport was read aloud, and he confessed. Next I showed Lentulus his letter and asked whether he recognized its seal. He nodded. “A familiar seal indeed,” I said, “your grandfather’s likeness, the image of an illustrious man who loved his country and his fellow citizens beyond all else. Even without a voice, that image should have called you back from so great a crime.”\n\nSECTION 11\nHis letter to the Allobroges’ council and people was read in the same manner. I offered him the chance to say whatever he wished about it. At first he refused. Later, once the evidence had all been set out and made known, he rose and asked the Gauls what business he had with them and why they had come to his house; he put the same questions to Volturcius. Calmly and briefly they answered: through whom they had come, how many visits they had made. They asked whether he had said nothing to them of the Sibylline prophecies. Then, suddenly driven out of his mind by guilt, he revealed the force of conscience. Though denial was still open to him, he abruptly confessed, against every expectation. So overwhelming was the crime, laid bare and caught in proof, that not merely his native ability and practiced eloquence—his constant strengths—deserted him, but even the brazen wickedness in which he surpassed all men.\n\nSECTION 12\nVolturcius suddenly called for another letter to be produced and opened: the one, he said, that Lentulus had entrusted to him for Catiline. Lentulus, violently shaken, nonetheless acknowledged his seal and handwriting there too. No name appeared on the letter. Its words were these: “The man I have sent will tell you who I am. Act like a man and consider how far you have advanced. Look to what your situation now requires; see that you attach to yourself the help of everyone, even the lowest.” Gabinius was then brought in. He began with insolent answers; in the end he denied none of the Gauls’ charges.\n\nSECTION 13\nTo my mind, citizens, the letters, their seals, their handwriting, and finally each man’s confession gave utterly certain proof and evidence of the crime. More certain still were their complexions, their eyes, their faces, their silence. So stunned they stood, so fixed their gaze upon the ground, so furtive the glances they sometimes exchanged, that they seemed not men accused by others but their own accusers.\n\nCHAPTER 6\n\nWith the evidence laid out and declared, citizens, I asked the Senate what it wished done for the republic’s highest interests. The leading men expressed the sternest, most courageous opinions, and the Senate followed without a dissenting voice. The decree has not yet been written out in full; I shall therefore tell you from memory what the Senate resolved.\n\nSECTION 14\nFirst come thanks to me in the most generous language: my courage, judgment, and foresight have delivered the state from its gravest perils. Next the praetors Lucius Flaccus and Gaius Pomptinus receive praise, justly deserved, for their courageous and faithful service to me. My valiant colleague is praised as well, for excluding those involved in the conspiracy from his own counsels and the state’s. The Senate resolved that Publius Lentulus should be handed into custody after resigning the praetorship, and that Gaius Cethegus, Lucius Statilius, and Publius Gabinius, all present, should likewise be detained. The same decree applies to Lucius Cassius, who had claimed the direction of the city’s burning; to Marcus Ceparius, whose assignment, the evidence showed, was to incite the shepherds of Apulia; to Publius Furius, one of the settlers Lucius Sulla established at Faesulae; to Quintus Annius Chilo, who had continually acted with Furius in approaching the Allobroges; and to Publius Umbrenus, a freedman known to have first conducted the Gauls to Gabinius. Such was the Senate’s clemency, citizens: from this vast conspiracy, this great multitude of enemies within our country, it thought the punishment of nine utterly corrupt men would preserve the republic and allow the minds of the others to be cured.\n\nSECTION 15\nA public thanksgiving to the immortal gods for their exceptional service was decreed in my name as well. Since Rome’s foundation, I am the first to receive this honor in civilian dress. The decree gives its reason in these words: “For freeing the city from fires, its citizens from slaughter, Italy from war.” Compare it with all other thanksgivings and one distinction appears: those marked good service to the republic; this alone marked the republic’s preservation. What needed doing first has also been done and completed. Publius Lentulus resigned his office. Disclosure of the evidence, his own admissions, and the Senate’s judgment had already stripped him not merely of a praetor’s rights but of a citizen’s. Nevertheless he resigned, so that punishing him as a private man might leave us free of religious scruple—a scruple which had not prevented that illustrious Gaius Marius from killing the praetor Gaius Glaucia, though no decree had named Glaucia specifically.\n\nSECTION 16\nCHAPTER 7\n\nNow, citizens, with the wicked commanders of this most criminal and dangerous war taken and held in your hands, you must consider all Catiline’s forces, hopes, and resources broken by the removal of the dangers facing Rome. When I drove Catiline out, this was what I foresaw: without him, neither Publius Lentulus’s sleepiness, nor Lucius Cassius’s fat, nor Gaius Cethegus’s frenzied rashness need frighten me. Alone among them he was formidable, and only while Rome’s walls contained him. He knew everything, commanded access to everyone; he could approach, probe, entice, and dared to do it. He had a mind fitted for crime, with speech and action never wanting to his purpose. For each task he already had his chosen, designated agent. Giving an order did not mean, to him, that the work was done. There was nothing he would not visit himself, meet in person, watch over, labor at. Cold, thirst, hunger—he could endure them all.\n\nSECTION 17\nHad I not forced that man from plots within the state into banditry in a military camp—a man so fierce, so bold, so ready, so cunning, so watchful in crime, so tireless in desperate undertakings—I shall speak my mind, citizens: I could not easily have lifted this mountain of evil from your necks. He would not have appointed the Saturnalia for us, not announced the state’s day of destruction and doom so long beforehand, not allowed his own seal and letters to be seized as witnesses to manifest crime. Without him, the affair has unfolded so that no theft within a private house was ever discovered more openly than this conspiracy has been caught against the whole state. Had Catiline stayed in Rome until today, I would still have had to fight him, to put it at its mildest, though I met and resisted every plan of his while he remained. Never, with such an enemy inside the city, could we have delivered the republic from these enormous dangers in such peace, such quiet, such silence.\n\nSECTION 18\nCHAPTER 8\n\nYet I have managed these affairs, citizens, in such a way that divine judgment and divine will seem to have guided their foresight and achievement. We may reach that belief by inference: governing such immense events scarcely seems a task human judgment could have borne. More than inference, the gods have shown themselves so near in giving help and rescue at this hour that they are almost visible to our eyes. Set aside the torches that appeared from the west in the night and the blazing heavens; set aside the bolts of lightning and the shaking earth. Set aside all the other signs—so numerous in our consulship that the immortals seemed to foretell what is happening now. There is one event I must not pass by, citizens, one I cannot leave unspoken. It is this.\n\nSECTION 19\nYou surely remember how, in the consulship of Cotta and Torquatus, lightning struck several things upon the Capitol: images of the gods were displaced, statues of men of old thrown down, the bronze tablets of the laws melted. Romulus, the founder himself, was struck too—you remember his gilded figure on the Capitol, a small suckling child, reaching toward the wolf’s teats. At that time diviners assembled from all Etruria. They said that murders, fires, the destruction of law, war within our country, the fall of the whole city and its empire were drawing near, unless the gods were appeased by every means and used their power almost to bend fate itself aside.\n\nSECTION 20\nFollowing their answers, games were held for ten days, and nothing conducive to appeasing the gods was left undone. They also commanded that a larger image of Jupiter be made, placed upon a height, and turned eastward, the opposite of its former direction. Their hope, they said, was that, if the statue you now see looked toward sunrise, the Forum, and the Senate House, the secret plans against the city’s and empire’s safety would be brought to light, plainly visible to Rome’s people and Senate. Those consuls commissioned its erection. The work, however, dragged on so slowly that neither the preceding consuls nor we ourselves had put it in place before today.\n\nSECTION 21\nCHAPTER 9\n\nWho here can be so estranged from truth, so headlong, so bereft of reason as to deny that divine will and power govern everything before us, and above all this city? The diviners had answered that murder, arson, and the state’s destruction were being prepared—and by citizens. The enormity of those crimes then made the report incredible to some. Now you have found that wicked citizens not only conceived them but put them in train. And what of the immediacy of this event? Does it not seem Jupiter, Best and Greatest, ordered it by his will? This morning, while at my command the conspirators and their accusers were being led across the Forum to Concord’s temple, at that very instant the statue was raised. Once it stood turned toward you and the Senate, both you and the Senate saw exposed and illuminated every design against the safety of all.\n\nSECTION 22\nHow much greater, then, the hatred and punishment those men deserve! Their attempt was to carry deadly, wicked fires not only into your dwellings and homes, but into the gods’ temples and sanctuaries. Were I to say that I resisted them, I would claim too much for myself, beyond what could be borne. It was he, Jupiter himself, who resisted. He willed the Capitol safe, these temples safe, the entire city safe, every one of you safe. The gods were my guides when I adopted this resolve and purpose and reached this mighty evidence. Consider too the approach to the Allobroges: never could Lentulus and our other enemies at home have been mad enough to trust affairs of such moment and letters to unknown men and barbarians, had the gods not robbed such vast audacity of judgment. And consider the Gauls themselves. Their community was poorly pacified; theirs is the one people left who seem able, and not unwilling, to make war on Rome. Yet they disregarded the hope of power and the greatest rewards, freely offered them by patricians, and put your security before their own advancement. Do you not see a divine act in that, especially when they could have defeated us simply by silence, without a fight?\n\nSECTION 23\nCHAPTER 10\n\nCitizens, the decree for thanksgiving reaches every sacred couch. Keep its days in celebration, your wives and children beside you. The immortal gods have often received many honors that were just and owed to them; never, surely, were honors more just than these. You were snatched out of a most merciless and wretched death, snatched free with no slaughter, no spilling of blood, no army, no fighting. In civilian dress you gained the victory, and a single man in civilian dress—myself—was your leader and commander.\n\nSECTION 24\nThink back, citizens, through all the conflicts within our state, those you know from hearing as well as those you have witnessed and remember. It was Lucius Sulla who crushed Publius Sulpicius, who banished Gaius Marius, the city’s guardian, and drove out or killed many other courageous men. Armed force enabled the consul Gnaeus Octavius to expel his colleague from Rome; around this very place lay overflowing piles of bodies and citizens’ blood. Cinna and Marius later won the upper hand. Illustrious men were killed then, and the lights of the state went dark. In time Sulla took vengeance for that victory’s cruelty—no need to recount the citizens lost, the catastrophe inflicted on the republic. Marcus Lepidus parted from that distinguished and valiant Quintus Catulus; the grief his own death brought the state was less than that brought by the deaths of others.\n\nSECTION 25\n[And yet all those] conflicts aimed not at destroying the republic but at changing it. Those men did not wish for the republic to cease to exist, but to be its leaders while it stood; not for this city to burn, but for themselves to flourish in it. Yet all those conflicts, none of which sought the republic’s destruction, were settled not by the restoration of harmony but by the slaughter of citizens. In this war alone, however—the greatest and cruelest in human memory, a war such as no barbarous people has ever waged against its own nation—Lentulus, Catiline, Cethegus, and Cassius laid down this law: everyone who could remain safe if the city were safe was to be counted an enemy. In this war, citizens, I have acted so that all of you might be preserved unharmed. Your enemies thought only as many citizens would survive as escaped a boundless massacre, and only as much of the city as the flames could not reach; I have saved both city and citizens whole and unharmed.\n\nSECTION 26\nCHAPTER 11\n\nIn return for deeds of such magnitude, citizens, I will ask no prize for courage, no mark of honor, no monument of praise, save remembrance of this day forever. Let all my triumphs, every adornment of honor, each memorial of glory and distinction of praise be stored and established within your hearts. Nothing mute can delight me, nothing silent, nothing of a kind that men less worthy might also obtain. Your memory will nourish my achievements, your speech enlarge them; written records will let them grow old and gather strength. I see that the city’s life and the memory of my consulship have been prolonged for the same span—a span I hope will be eternal. At one and the same time this republic has produced two citizens: one bounded your empire not by the regions of earth but of heaven, the other preserved that empire’s dwelling and seat.\n\nSECTION 27\nCHAPTER 12\n\nMy achievements do not share the fortune and circumstances of those won in foreign wars. Their victors left the enemy dead or crushed; I must go on living with the men I have defeated and subdued. It falls to you, citizens, to ensure that deeds of mine never harm me, if others’ deeds rightly bring them advantage. I took care that the criminal, godless designs of those most reckless men could do you no injury. Your task is to keep their injury from me. And yet, citizens, in truth they can no longer harm me personally. Powerful protection among the good is secured to me forever. A great standing in the republic will be my silent defender always. Strong too is conscience: those who disregard its force will expose themselves when they seek to injure me.\n\nSECTION 28\nMy spirit is such, citizens, that I yield to no man’s recklessness; rather, I will always carry the challenge to every wicked man. Should every assault of the enemies within, once beaten back from you, turn upon me alone, you must then consider what position you wish men to hold hereafter who have faced all dangers and hostility for your safety. For myself, what further fruit can life bring me? In the honors you grant, in the glory courage brings, I see no higher place to which I would desire to climb.\n\nSECTION 29\nI shall make certain, citizens, that in private life I uphold and lend distinction to my deeds as consul. Let the envy earned in saving the republic injure the envious, while it serves my glory. My conduct in public life will always remember my achievements and take care that they appear the work of courage, never accident. Citizens, night has come. Offer reverence to Jupiter there, who keeps watch over you and Rome, and go home. The danger has been repelled; nonetheless keep your dwellings under guard and watch as on the preceding night. I will take care, citizens, that you need not continue this burden and may enjoy peace without end.\n\n### Speech 4\n\nSECTION 1\nCHAPTER 1\n\nI see, senators, that every face and every eye is turned toward me. I see that you are anxious not only about your own danger and the republic’s, but also, even if that danger is driven away, about mine. Amid these evils your concern for me is a pleasure; in my grief it is welcome. But by the immortal gods, put it aside! Forget my safety and think of yourselves and your children. If the terms on which I hold this consulship require me to endure every bitterness, every pain and torment, I will endure them, not only bravely but gladly, provided that my labors secure dignity and safety for you and the Roman people.\n\nSECTION 2\n\nI am that consul, senators, for whom neither the Forum, where all justice has its home, nor the Campus, consecrated by the auspices taken for consular elections, nor the Senate House, the highest refuge of every nation, nor my home, the shelter open to all, nor my bed, given for rest, nor, finally, this seat of honor has ever been free from deadly danger and ambush. I have kept silent about much, endured much, yielded much, and healed many of the things that frightened you at some cost of pain to myself. Now, if the immortal gods have willed this outcome for my consulship—that I should rescue you and the Roman people from a most pitiable massacre; your wives, your children, and the Vestal Virgins from the cruelest abuse; the temples and shrines, this most beautiful homeland of us all, from the foulest flames; and all Italy from war and devastation—then let me face whatever fate is set before me alone. For if Publius Lentulus, misled by soothsayers, believed his name was destined to bring the republic to ruin, why should I not rejoice that my consulship has proved all but destined to save the Roman people?\n\nSECTION 3\nCHAPTER 2\n\nTherefore, senators, take counsel for yourselves, look ahead for your country, preserve yourselves, your wives, your children, and your fortunes; defend the name and safety of the Roman people. Stop sparing me and thinking of me. First, I ought to hope that all the gods who watch over this city will reward me as I deserve. Then, if anything should befall me, I will die with a calm and ready spirit. For death cannot be dishonorable for a brave man, or premature for a man who has been consul, or wretched for a wise man. Yet I am not made of iron: I cannot be unmoved by the grief of my beloved and loving brother here, or by the tears of all these men you see surrounding me. My thoughts are often called home by my wife, beside herself with fear, my daughter, prostrate with terror, and my little son, whom the republic seems to me to hold in its arms as a pledge of my consulship; and also by my son-in-law, standing before my eyes as he awaits the outcome of this day. All this moves me—but toward securing their safety along with yours, even if some violence overwhelms me, rather than letting them and us perish together in the republic’s ruin.\n\nSECTION 4\n\nTherefore, senators, bend all your strength toward saving the republic. Look around you at every storm that hangs over us unless you act in time. It is not Tiberius Gracchus, because he wanted to become tribune of the people a second time; not Gaius Gracchus, because he tried to stir up the supporters of land reform; not Lucius Saturninus, because he killed Gaius Memmius, who is now brought into peril and before your stern judgment. We hold the men who stayed in Rome to burn the city, to massacre you all, to welcome Catiline. We hold their letters, their seals, their handwriting, and finally the confession of each and every one. The Allobroges are being solicited; the slaves are being roused; Catiline is being summoned. This is the plan they have undertaken: to kill everyone, leaving not a soul even to mourn the name of the Roman people and lament the calamity of so great an empire.\n\nSECTION 5\nCHAPTER 3\n\nInformers have reported all this; the accused have confessed it; and you have already pronounced your judgment in many decisions. First you thanked me in extraordinary terms and decreed that my courage and vigilance had exposed the conspiracy of desperate men. Next you compelled Publius Lentulus to resign his praetorship. Then you voted that he and the others on whom you had passed judgment should be placed in custody. Most significantly, you decreed a public thanksgiving in my name, an honor granted to no civilian before me. Finally, yesterday you bestowed the most generous rewards on the envoys of the Allobroges and on Titus Volturcius. All these measures make it clear, beyond any doubt, that you have condemned the men you expressly named for detention.\n\nSECTION 6\n\nYet I have resolved, senators, to lay the matter before you as though it were still untouched: both your judgment on the deed and your decision on the punishment. I will first say what it is a consul’s duty to say. I had long seen a great madness at work in the republic, with strange new evils being stirred and set in motion. But I never imagined that citizens were conducting a conspiracy so vast and so destructive. Now, whatever the truth, wherever your minds and your votes incline, you must reach a decision before nightfall. You see the enormity of the crime brought before you. If you think that only a few are implicated, you are gravely mistaken. This evil has spread more widely than anyone supposes. It has flowed not only through Italy but across the Alps, and, creeping unseen, has already seized many provinces. There is no way to suppress it by delay and postponement. Whatever course you choose, you must punish it swiftly.\n\nSECTION 7\nCHAPTER 4\n\nSo far I see two proposals: one from Decimus Silanus, who holds that those who tried to destroy all this must be punished with death; the other from Gaius Caesar, who rejects the death penalty but embraces every severity of the other punishments. Each, as befits his own standing and the gravity of the situation, takes a position of the utmost sternness. The first believes that those who tried to rob us all, and the Roman people, of life, to destroy our empire and extinguish the very name of the Roman people, should not enjoy life and the air we share for a single instant. He recalls that this kind of punishment has often been used in our republic against wicked citizens. The other understands that the immortal gods did not establish death as a punishment: it is either a necessity of nature or a rest from toil and misery. That is why the wise have never met it unwillingly, and the brave have often met it gladly. Imprisonment, however—and lifelong imprisonment at that—was surely devised as an exceptional punishment for unspeakable crime. He directs that the prisoners be distributed among the municipal towns. That measure seems unjust if you mean to command them, and difficult if you mean to ask.\n\nSECTION 8\n\nStill, decree it, if you wish. I will undertake the task, and I hope to find men who will not think it consistent with their dignity to refuse what you have resolved upon for everyone’s safety. He adds a heavy penalty for the towns if any of the prisoners escapes his chains. He surrounds them with dreadful safeguards worthy of these desperate men’s crime. He makes it law that no one may lighten the punishment of those he condemns, whether through the Senate or through the people. He takes away even hope, the one thing that usually consoles people in misery. He also orders their property confiscated. To these criminals he leaves life alone. Had he taken that away, in a single pang he would have spared them many miseries of mind and body and every punishment for their crimes. That is why the ancients, to set some terror before the wicked during life, maintained that certain punishments of this kind had been established for the impious in the world below. They plainly understood that, once these were removed, death itself was nothing to dread.\n\nSECTION 9\nCHAPTER 5\n\nNow, senators, I see where my own interest lies. If you follow Gaius Caesar’s proposal, since he has taken the political path regarded as the people’s cause, perhaps, with him as this proposal’s author and guarantor, I shall have less to fear from attacks made in the people’s name. If you follow the other proposal, I suspect I may be drawing more trouble upon myself. Yet let the republic’s advantage outweigh calculations of my own dangers. For Caesar has given us, as his own dignity and his ancestors’ greatness demanded, a proposal that stands as a pledge of his lasting devotion to the republic. The difference has become clear between the irresponsibility of demagogues and a truly popular spirit, intent on the people’s safety.\n\nSECTION 10\n\nI see that one of those who wish to be thought champions of the people is absent—so as not, of course, to pronounce on the lives of Roman citizens. Yet two days ago he consigned Roman citizens to custody, decreed a thanksgiving in my honor, and yesterday bestowed the greatest rewards on the informers. Surely no one can doubt what judgment a man has passed on the entire affair and the case when he has decreed detention for the accused, congratulations for the investigator, and a reward for the informer. Gaius Caesar, however, understands that the Sempronian law was established for Roman citizens, and that an enemy of the republic cannot possibly be a citizen; finally, that the very man who proposed the Sempronian law paid the penalty to the republic by order of the people. Nor does he think that Lentulus himself, lavish in gifts and prodigal in spending, can even be called a champion of the people after plotting so savagely and cruelly to destroy the Roman people and bring this city to ruin. And so this mildest and gentlest of men does not hesitate to consign Publius Lentulus to perpetual darkness and chains. He provides for the future that no one may parade himself by lightening this man’s punishment, or ever again win popular favor by destroying the Roman people. He adds confiscation of their property, so that poverty and beggary of the body may follow every torment of the mind.\n\nSECTION 11\nCHAPTER 6\n\nTherefore, if you adopt this proposal, you will have given me a companion, dear and welcome to the people, when I address their assembly. If you prefer to follow Silanus’s proposal, the Roman people will readily acquit you and me of the charge of cruelty, and I shall establish that his proposal was much the more merciful. Indeed, senators, what cruelty can there be in punishing so monstrous a crime? I judge by my own feelings. As I hope to enjoy with you the safety of the republic, the force I bring to this case springs not from a savage temper—for who is milder than I?—but from an extraordinary humanity and compassion. For I seem to see this city, the light of the world and the stronghold of all nations, suddenly falling in a single conflagration. In my mind I see the pitiful, unburied heaps of citizens in their buried homeland. Before my eyes passes the sight of Cethegus, his frenzy reveling in your slaughter.\n\nSECTION 12\n\nWhen I picture Lentulus ruling as king, as he himself confessed he had hoped the prophecies promised him, Gabinius as his purple-robed courtier, and Catiline arriving with his army, then I shudder at the wailing of mothers, the flight of girls and boys, and the abuse of the Vestal Virgins. Precisely because these things seem to me so pitiful and so deserving of pity, I will show myself stern and forceful toward those who meant to carry them out. For consider: if a father, after his children had been murdered by a slave, his wife killed, and his house burned, failed to exact the harshest punishment from the slaves, would he seem merciful and compassionate, or utterly inhuman and cruel? To me he would seem heartless and made of iron if he did not soothe his own pain and torment with the pain and torment of the guilty. So it is with us and these men who wished to butcher us, our wives, and our children; who tried to destroy each man’s separate home and this common home of the republic; who worked to settle the nation of the Allobroges on the site of this city and in the ashes of our burned-out empire. If we show the utmost force against them, we shall be thought compassionate. But if we choose to be more lenient, we must bear a reputation for the utmost cruelty in the destruction of our country and its citizens.\n\nSECTION 13\n\nUnless, indeed, someone thought Lucius Caesar, a man of the greatest courage and devotion to the republic, too cruel two days ago, when he declared that his sister’s husband—she is a most excellent woman—must be put to death, with the man himself present and listening; when he said that his own grandfather had been killed by order of the consul, and that his grandfather’s young son, not yet of age, sent by his father as an envoy, had been killed in prison. What had those men done to compare with this? What plan had they undertaken to destroy the republic? At that time a desire for lavish distributions and a certain factional rivalry were at work in the state. And at that time this Lentulus’s grandfather, a most distinguished man, took up arms and pursued Gracchus. He even suffered a serious wound then, to prevent any loss to the republic’s supreme authority. This man, to overturn the republic’s foundations, summons the Gauls, rouses the slaves, calls in Catiline, assigns us to Cethegus for slaughter and the other citizens to Gabinius for murder, the city to Cassius for burning, and all Italy to Catiline for devastation and plunder. I suggest you need have little fear of seeming to have decreed something too stern for so monstrous and unspeakable a crime. We have far more reason to fear being thought cruel to our country through leniency in punishment than excessively harsh toward our bitterest enemies through severity in exacting it.\n\nSECTION 14\nCHAPTER 7\n\nBut I cannot ignore what I hear, senators. Remarks are being thrown about and reaching my ears from men who seem afraid that I lack sufficient forces to carry out what you decide today. Everything has been foreseen, prepared, and arranged, senators, thanks both to my utmost care and vigilance and, still more, to the Roman people’s determination to retain their sovereign power and preserve the fortunes of us all. They are all here: men of every order, every kind, and, indeed, every age. The Forum is full, the temples around the Forum are full, every entrance to this temple and this place is full. For this is the only cause found since the city’s founding on which everyone has felt one and the same, except those who, seeing that they must perish, preferred to perish with everyone rather than alone.\n\nSECTION 15\n\nThese men I gladly exclude and set apart. They should be counted, I think, not as wicked citizens but as our bitterest enemies. But the rest—immortal gods! In what numbers, with what zeal, with what courage they unite for our common safety and dignity! Why should I mention here the Roman knights? They acknowledge your supremacy in rank and counsel, yet compete with you in love of the republic. Recalled from many years of discord with this order to partnership and harmony, they are bound to you by this day and this cause. If we keep forever in the republic this union established during my consulship, I assure you that no civil and domestic evil will ever again come upon any part of the republic. I see the treasury tribunes, men of the greatest courage, assembled with equal zeal to defend the republic. So too all the clerks: chance brought them in crowds to the treasury today, and I see that they have turned from awaiting their allotment by lot to our common safety.\n\nSECTION 16\n\nThe whole multitude of the freeborn is here, even the poorest. Who does not hold these temples, the sight of the city, the possession of liberty, this very light, and the shared soil of our homeland not only dear but sweet and welcome?\n\nCHAPTER 8\n\nIt is worth your attention, senators, to learn the devotion of the freedmen. Having attained the standing of citizens by their own merit, they truly judge this to be their homeland, which some men born here—and born to the highest rank—have judged not their homeland but a city of enemies. But why do I speak of these orders and these men, whom their private fortunes, the common republic, and finally liberty, the sweetest thing of all, have roused to defend their country’s safety? There is not a slave, provided his condition of slavery is bearable, who does not shudder at the recklessness of these citizens, who does not wish our institutions to stand, who does not contribute as much goodwill to our safety as he dares and can.\n\nSECTION 17\nSo if any of you are troubled by the report that a certain procurer in Lentulus’s service is running about the shops, hoping to buy the allegiance of the needy and the ignorant, the attempt was indeed begun and made. But no one has been found so wretched in his circumstances or so corrupt in his desires that he does not wish to preserve that very place where he sits and works and earns his daily living, his sleeping corner and little bed, and, in short, the peaceful course of his life. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of those who work in shops—or rather, for this is the truer statement, this entire class—are deeply devoted to peace. Every tool of trade, every business and livelihood depends on a busy citizenry and flourishes in quiet times. If their earnings commonly fall when their shops are shut, what would have happened when they were burned?\n\nSECTION 18\nSince this is so, senators, you do not lack the Roman people’s support. Take care that you do not seem to fail the Roman people.\n\nCHAPTER 9\n\nYou have a consul preserved through countless dangers and plots, and from the very midst of death, not for his own life but for your safety. Every order is united in thought, will, and voice to preserve the republic. Beset by the torches and weapons of an impious conspiracy, our common country stretches pleading hands toward you. To you she entrusts herself, to you the life of every citizen, to you the citadel and Capitol, to you the altars of the household gods, to you Vesta’s everlasting fire, to you the temples and shrines of every god, to you the city’s walls and roofs. And today you must judge the fate of your own lives, of your wives’ and children’s lives, of everyone’s possessions, of your homes and hearths.\n\nSECTION 19\nYou have a leader mindful of you and forgetful of himself, an opportunity not always granted. You have every order, every man, the whole Roman people, thinking one and the same thought—a sight we see today for the first time in a question of domestic politics. Consider how nearly a single night destroyed an empire founded with such toil, liberty established with such courage, and fortunes raised and enlarged by such divine generosity. Today you must ensure that citizens can never again not merely accomplish such a thing, but even conceive it. I have said this not to stir you, whose zeal almost outruns my own, but so that my voice, which ought to take the lead in the republic, may be seen to have fulfilled a consul’s duty.\n\nSECTION 20\nCHAPTER 10\n\nNow, before I return to the question before us, I will say a few words about myself. I see that I have taken upon myself as many enemies as there are conspirators—and you see how vast their band is. Yet I judge them base, weak, and contemptible. Even if, one day, that band, roused by someone’s madness and crime, proves stronger than your authority and the republic’s, I will never regret my actions and decisions, senators. The death with which they may threaten me awaits us all. But no one has won such praise in life as you have bestowed on me by your decrees: for others you have always decreed thanksgiving for serving the republic well; for me alone, for saving it.\n\nSECTION 21\nLet that Scipio be renowned whose wisdom and courage forced Hannibal to return to Africa and leave Italy. Let the other Africanus be adorned with surpassing praise, who destroyed Carthage and Numantia, the two cities most hostile to this empire. Let that Paulus be held an outstanding man, whose chariot was graced by Perseus, once a king of the greatest power and nobility. Let Marius have eternal glory, who twice freed Italy from siege and the fear of enslavement. Let Pompey stand above them all, whose achievements and virtues extend to the same regions and boundaries as the sun’s course. Surely among their honors there will be some room for my glory—unless opening provinces for us to go out into is greater than ensuring that even those who are away have somewhere to return as victors.\n\nSECTION 22\nYet in one respect victory abroad enjoys a better position than victory at home. Foreign enemies, once subdued, serve us; if received into friendship, they consider themselves bound by our kindness. But citizens who, corrupted by some madness, have once become enemies of their country can neither be restrained by force nor reconciled by kindness, even after you have driven them back from the destruction of the republic. I see, therefore, that I have taken up an everlasting war against depraved citizens. I trust that, with your help and that of all good men, and with the memory of these great dangers—which will live forever not only among the people who have been saved but in the speech and minds of all nations—I can readily keep that war from myself and my family. Surely no force will ever be found so great that it can shatter and undermine your union with the Roman knights and this mighty concord of all good men.\n\nSECTION 23\nCHAPTER 11\n\nSince this is so, in place of the command, the army, and the province I have forgone; in place of a triumph and the other distinctions I have rejected to watch over the city and your safety; in place of provincial clients and ties of hospitality, which, even with my influence here in Rome, cost no less labor to maintain than to acquire—in place of all these things, then, in return for my singular devotion to you and this care for the preservation of the republic that you see before you, I ask nothing but the memory of this hour and of my entire consulship. As long as that memory remains fixed in your minds, I will consider myself enclosed within the safest wall. But if the violence of wicked men defeats and overcomes my hope, I entrust my little son to you. Surely he will have protection enough, not only for his safety but for his standing, if you remember that he is the son of the man who preserved all this at his own peril alone.\n\nSECTION 24\nTherefore, on your own ultimate safety and that of the Roman people, on your wives and children, on your altars and hearths, on your sanctuaries and temples, on the roofs and homes of the entire city, on empire and liberty, on Italy’s safety, on the whole republic, decide with the care you have shown from the beginning, and with courage. You have a consul who will not hesitate to obey your decrees and who, for as long as he lives, can defend what you resolve and answer for its execution himself.","download_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/cicero-catiline/translations/trn_cicero_catiline_mouseia.txt"},{"id":"trn_cicero_catiline_plain","translator":"Mouseia","kind":"plain","note":"Complete machine-assisted Plain English translation made independently and directly from the Latin in separate source-only tasks, not from the Musean edition or a published English translation. All four speeches and 115 sections retained; source-language model review recorded.","text":"### Speech 1\n\nSECTION 1\nCHAPTER 1\n\nHow much longer will you abuse our patience, Catiline? How long will this madness of yours keep making fools of us? How far will your reckless daring go? Has none of this affected you: the night guard on the Palatine, the watches throughout the city, the people’s fear, the gathering of all decent citizens, this heavily guarded place where the Senate meets, the faces and expressions of these men? Do you not realize that your plans are exposed? Do you not see that everyone’s knowledge has already trapped your conspiracy? Which of us do you think does not know what you did last night and the night before, where you were, whom you called together, and what plan you adopted?\n\nSECTION 2\nWhat times we live in! What standards of behavior! The Senate knows all this. The consul sees it. Yet this man is still alive. Alive? He even comes into the Senate. He takes part in public decisions. His eyes pick out and mark each one of us for murder. And we, brave men that we are, think we are doing enough for our country if we keep out of the way of his madness and his weapons. A consul’s order should have sent you to your death long ago, Catiline. The destruction you have long been planning for all of us should have fallen on you.\n\nSECTION 3\nPublius Scipio, a most distinguished man and the chief priest, killed Tiberius Gracchus as a private citizen. Gracchus was only shaking the foundations of the state to a limited degree. Are we, the consuls, to put up with Catiline, who wants to devastate the world with slaughter and fire? I pass over the much older example of Gaius Servilius Ahala, who killed Spurius Maelius with his own hand for trying to bring about a revolution. Our country once had that courage. It did. Brave men would punish a dangerous citizen more harshly than the bitterest foreign enemy. We have a Senate decree against you, Catiline, forceful and serious. The state does not lack the judgment or authority of this body. We are failing it—we, the consuls, I say so openly.\n\nSECTION 4\nCHAPTER 2\n\nThe Senate once decreed that the consul Lucius Opimius should see that the state suffered no harm. Not a single night passed. Gaius Gracchus was killed on suspicion of stirring up unrest, despite his famous father, grandfather, and ancestors. Marcus Fulvius, a former consul, was killed along with his children. A similar Senate decree put the state in the hands of the consuls Gaius Marius and Lucius Valerius. Did Lucius Saturninus, the people’s tribune, and Gaius Servilius, the praetor, then wait even a day for death and the state’s punishment? But we have let the sharp edge of the Senate’s authority grow blunt for twenty days now. We have a decree of this kind, but it is shut away among the records, like a sword put back in its sheath. Under that decree, Catiline, you should have been killed at once. You live, and you live not to give up your reckless purpose but to strengthen it. Senators, I want to be merciful. I want to avoid seeming careless when our country faces such danger. But I already condemn myself for inaction and worthlessness.\n\nSECTION 5\nA camp has been set up in Italy against the Roman people, at the approaches to Etruria. The number of enemies grows every day. Yet you see the commander of that camp, the leader of those enemies, inside our walls—inside the Senate itself. Every day he works to destroy the state from within. If I now ordered your arrest and execution, Catiline, I suppose I would have to fear that someone might call me too cruel, rather than that all decent citizens would say I had acted too late! Still, I have a particular reason for not yet bringing myself to do what should have been done long ago. You will be killed only when no one can be found so wicked, so ruined, so much like you, that he will not admit it was justified.\n\nSECTION 6\nAs long as anyone dares to defend you, you will live. And you will live as you do now, surrounded by the many strong guards I have posted, so you cannot make a move against the state. Many people’s eyes and ears will also watch and track you without your knowing it, just as they have done so far.\n\nCHAPTER 3\n\nWhat more can you be waiting for, Catiline? The darkness of night cannot hide your criminal meetings. The walls of a private house cannot hold in the words of your conspiracy. Everything comes to light. Everything breaks out into the open. Change your thinking now. Believe me: forget murder and arson. You are caught on every side. All your plans are clearer to us than daylight. You can now go over them with me.\n\nSECTION 7\nDo you remember what I said in the Senate on October 21? I said that Gaius Manlius, the follower and agent of your recklessness, would take up arms on a particular day, October 27. Was I wrong, Catiline? Not just about an event so serious, so terrible, so hard to believe, but, far more surprisingly, about the day? I also said in the Senate that you had fixed October 28 for the murder of the leading supporters of the state. That was when many leading citizens left Rome, less to save themselves than to block your plans. Can you deny that on that very day my guards and my careful watch kept you hemmed in and unable to act against the state? You were saying that, though the others had left, you were still content to murder those of us who had stayed.\n\nSECTION 8\nAnd what about Praeneste? You were sure you would seize it in a night attack on November 1 itself. Did you notice that I had ordered that colony to be protected by my guards, sentries, and night watches? You do nothing, attempt nothing, think of nothing that I do not hear about and also see and fully understand.\n\nCHAPTER 4\n\nGo back with me now over the night before last. You will soon see that I watch far more closely to keep the state safe than you do to destroy it. I say that the night before last you went to the scythe-makers’ district—I will be quite specific—to the house of Marcus Laeca. Several partners in the same madness and crime came there too. Do you dare deny it? Why are you silent? If you deny it, I will prove it. I can see men here in the Senate who were there with you.\n\nSECTION 9\nImmortal gods! Where on earth are we? What kind of state do we have? What city are we living in? Here, here among us, senators, in this most sacred and respected council in the world, are men who plan the death of us all. They plan the destruction of this city and, beyond it, the whole world. I, the consul, see these men and ask their opinions on public business. They should be cut down with swords, yet I have not even wounded them with words! So you were at Laeca’s house that night, Catiline. You divided up the regions of Italy. You decided where each man was to go. You chose whom to leave in Rome and whom to take with you. You assigned districts of the city to be burned. You confirmed that you yourself would now leave. You said there was still one small delay: I was alive. Two Roman knights were found to free you from that worry. They promised to kill me in my own bed that very night, shortly before dawn.\n\nSECTION 10\nI learned all this almost before your meeting had broken up. I strengthened and secured my house with more guards. I shut out the men you had sent to greet me in the morning. The men who came were the very ones I had already told many of our most important citizens would come at that time.\n\nCHAPTER 5\n\nThat being so, Catiline, carry on as you began. Get out of the city at last. The gates are open. Go. That camp of Manlius’s has been waiting far too long for you, its commander. Take all your men with you too. If not all, take as many as you can. Clean the city out. You will free me from a great fear, as long as a wall stands between you and me. You cannot stay among us any longer. I will not bear it. I will not put up with it. I will not allow it.\n\nSECTION 11\nWe owe great thanks to the immortal gods, and to Jupiter the Upholder himself, this city’s oldest guardian. We have escaped so many times from this foul, terrifying threat to our country. The survival of the state must not keep depending on one man’s life. While you were plotting against me as consul-elect, Catiline, I protected myself through my own vigilance, not with public guards. At the last consular elections, you wanted to kill me, the consul, and your rivals on the Field of Mars. I stopped your criminal attempts with the help and forces of my friends, without causing any public alarm. In short, whenever you attacked me, I resisted you with my own resources. Yet I could see that my destruction would bring a great disaster on the state as well.\n\nSECTION 12\nNow you openly attack the whole state. You are calling down destruction and devastation on the temples of the immortal gods, the city’s homes, the lives of all its citizens, and all of Italy. So I will take a course that is less harsh but more useful for everyone’s safety. I do not yet dare take the first and best course, the one that belongs to the authority I hold and our ancestors’ practice. If I order you killed, the rest of the conspirators will remain in the state. But if you leave, as I have long been urging you to do, the great, dangerous cesspool your followers make in the state will be drained out of the city.\n\nCHAPTER 6\n\nWhat is it, Catiline?\n\nSECTION 13\nAre you hesitating to do on my orders what you were already doing on your own? The consul orders an enemy to leave the city. Are you asking me whether I mean exile? I am not ordering it. But if you ask my advice, I recommend it. What can still give you any pleasure in this city, Catiline? Outside your conspiracy of ruined men, everyone here fears you and everyone hates you. What mark of shame in family life has not been branded on your life? What disgrace in private affairs does not cling to your reputation? What lust has ever been absent from your eyes, what crime from your hands, what shameful act from your whole body? When you trapped a young man with the lures of corruption, was there ever one for whom you did not hold up a sword to guide him into violence or a torch to guide him into lust?\n\nSECTION 14\nAnd what about this? Recently, when you had made room for a new marriage by the death of your previous wife, did you not add another unbelievable crime to that crime? I pass over it and am quite willing to leave it unspoken. Otherwise it would seem that a crime of such monstrous scale could either have happened in this country or have gone unpunished. I pass over the collapse of your finances. You will feel its full weight hanging over you on the next Ides. I turn instead to things that concern not the personal disgrace of your vices, not your private troubles and shame, but the survival of the state and the lives and safety of us all.\n\nSECTION 15\nCan this daylight, Catiline, or the air you breathe under this sky give you any pleasure? You know that every man here knows what you did on the day before January 1, in the consulship of Lepidus and Tullus. You stood in the assembly ground with a weapon. You had put together a band to kill the consuls and the leading citizens. Neither a change of mind nor any fear on your part blocked your criminal madness. It was the good fortune of the Roman people. But I leave that aside. Your later acts have not been hidden or few. How many times have you tried to kill me as consul-elect, and then as consul! How many attacks you aimed at me seemed impossible to dodge! Yet I escaped by a slight movement, a turn of the body, as they say. You do nothing. You get nowhere. Yet you never stop trying and wanting to do it.\n\nSECTION 16\nHow many times has that dagger been forced from your hands! How many times has some accident made it slip and fall out! I do not know what rites you have used to consecrate and dedicate it, making you think you must plant it in a consul’s body.\n\nCHAPTER 7\n\nBut what kind of life are you living now? I will speak to you now in a way that seems prompted not by the hatred you deserve, but by pity, which you do not deserve at all. You came into the Senate a short while ago. Out of this great crowd, out of all your friends and close associates, who greeted you? Nothing like this has happened to anyone in living memory. Do you wait for insults spoken aloud when the silence has already delivered the harshest judgment against you? And what about the benches emptied at your approach? All the former consuls, men you had marked out for murder so often, left that part of the benches bare and empty as soon as you sat down. How do you think you should bear that?\n\nSECTION 17\nI swear by Hercules, if my slaves feared me the way all your fellow citizens fear you, I would think I had to leave my house. Do you not think you have to leave the city? If I saw that my fellow citizens deeply suspected and hated me without cause, I would rather be out of their sight than face everyone’s hostile looks. But you know from your own crimes that everyone’s hatred is justified and has long been deserved. How can you hesitate to get away from the sight and company of people whose minds and feelings you hurt? If your parents feared and hated you, and you could not win them over by any means, I think you would go somewhere out of their sight. Now your country, the common parent of us all, hates and fears you. It has long judged that you think of nothing but murdering it, your own parent. Will you show no respect for its authority, accept no judgment from it, feel no fear of its power?\n\nSECTION 18\nThis is how your country deals with you, Catiline. In a way, its silence speaks: “For several years now, no crime has happened except through you, no disgraceful act without you. You alone have been free to kill many citizens, to harass and rob our allies, and go unpunished. You have had the power not only to disregard laws and criminal courts, but to overturn and break them down. Those earlier acts should not have been tolerated, but I put up with them as best I could. Now my whole being is gripped by fear because of you alone. At every sound, it is Catiline I fear. No plan against me seems possible that would be out of keeping with your criminal nature. This cannot be tolerated. So go away and free me from this fear. If it is justified, go so that I am not destroyed. If it is groundless, go so that I can finally stop being afraid.”\n\nSECTION 19\nCHAPTER 8\n\nIf your country spoke to you as I have described, should it not get what it asks, even if it cannot use force? And what about your offer to place yourself under supervision? To avoid suspicion, you said you wanted to live with Manius Lepidus. When he would not take you in, you even dared to come to me and ask me to keep you under guard in my own house. I too gave you my answer: I could not possibly be safe inside the same house as you, since I was in great danger even living inside the same city walls. Then you went to the praetor Quintus Metellus. He turned you down, so you moved in with your friend Marcus Metellus, that excellent man. Clearly, you thought he would be extremely careful in guarding you, extremely sharp in suspecting you, and extremely brave in punishing you. But how far from prison and chains should a man be who has already judged himself fit to be kept under guard?\n\nSECTION 20\nThat being so, Catiline, why hesitate? If you cannot calmly face death, go away to some other country. You have snatched this life of yours from the many punishments you justly owe. Why not hand it over to exile and loneliness?\n\n“Put it to the Senate,” you say. That is your demand. You say you will obey if this body passes a decree declaring that it wants you to go into exile. I will not put it to a vote; that would go against my principles. Still, I will make you understand what these men think of you. Leave the city, Catiline. Free the state from fear. Go into exile, if that is the word you are waiting for. Well? Are you paying attention? Do you notice their silence? They let this happen. They say nothing. Why wait for them to speak with authority when their silence makes their wishes plain?\n\nSECTION 21\nIf I had said the same thing to this excellent young man Publius Sestius, or to that very brave man Marcus Marcellus, the Senate would by now have laid violent hands on me, the consul, right here in this temple. And it would have been fully justified. But in your case, Catiline, by keeping still they approve. By letting this happen they pass judgment. By saying nothing they shout. And it is not just these men, whose authority you of course value, though you think their lives are worth nothing. It is also those Roman knights, those honorable and excellent men, and the other courageous citizens standing around the Senate. You could see their numbers, recognize their feelings, and hear their voices a little while ago. For a long time now I have barely kept their hands and weapons off you. Yet I will easily persuade these same men to escort you all the way to the gates as you leave the places you have so long been trying to destroy.\n\nSECTION 22\nCHAPTER 9\n\nBut what am I saying? Could anything break you? Could you ever put yourself right? Could you consider fleeing, or think about exile? I wish the immortal gods would put that thought into your head! Yet I can see the storm of resentment that threatens me if my words frighten you into deciding to go into exile. Perhaps it will not come now, while the memory of your crimes is fresh. But it will come in the future. Still, it is worth the price, provided the disaster falls on you alone and is kept apart from danger to our country. But we cannot expect you to be troubled by your vices, to fear the penalties of the law, or to give way before the country’s crisis. You are not the sort of man, Catiline, whom shame could turn back from disgrace, fear from danger, or reason from madness.\n\nSECTION 23\nSo leave, as I have said so often. If you want to stir up hatred against me, whom you call your enemy, go straight into exile. If you do that, I will hardly be able to bear people’s talk. If you go into exile on the consul’s orders, I will hardly stand up under the weight of their hatred. But if you would rather add to the praise and glory I receive, leave with your savage band of criminals. Go to Manlius. Rouse the ruined citizens. Separate yourself from the decent ones. Make war on your country. Revel in your godless banditry. Then it will be clear that I did not drive you out to live among strangers, but invited you to join your own people.\n\nSECTION 24\nBut why should I invite you? I already know you have sent armed men ahead to wait for you at Forum Aurelium. I know you have agreed and fixed a day with Manlius. I know you have even sent ahead that silver eagle. I am sure it will bring destruction and death to you and all your followers. You set up a criminal shrine to it in your own house. Could you stay away from it any longer? You used to worship it before setting out to murder. Often you have left its altars to use that godless right hand to kill citizens.\n\nSECTION 25\nCHAPTER 10\n\nAt last you will go where your wild, uncontrolled desire has long been dragging you. This brings you no pain, but an almost unbelievable pleasure. Nature gave you birth for this madness. Your own will trained you for it. Fortune kept you alive for it. You have never wanted peace, or even any war that was not criminal. You have found a band of wicked men, made up of ruined people who have lost all their resources and even all hope.\n\nSECTION 26\nWhat delight you will enjoy there! How you will jump for joy! How wildly you will revel in pleasure, when among so many of your followers you neither hear nor see a single decent man! Those famous hardships of yours were practice for this way of life. You lay on the ground not only to wait for a chance at illicit sex, but to carry out a crime. You stayed awake not only to take advantage of sleeping husbands, but to attack the property of peaceful people. Now you have somewhere to show off that famous ability of yours to endure hunger, cold, and the lack of everything. You will soon find that those things have worn you out.\n\nSECTION 27\nI achieved this much when I kept you out of the consulship: you could attack the state as an exile rather than torment it as consul. And the criminal enterprise you had undertaken could be called banditry rather than war.\n\nCHAPTER 11\n\nNow, senators, I want to head off a complaint my country might make against me, one that would almost be justified, and ask to be spared it. Please listen carefully to what I say and fix it deep in your hearts and minds. Suppose my country, which I love far more than my own life, suppose all Italy, suppose the whole state were to speak to me: “Marcus Tullius, what are you doing? You have found this man to be an enemy. You see that he will lead a war. You know the enemy camp is waiting for him as its commander. Will you let him leave, the man behind these crimes, the leader of the conspiracy, the man who calls out slaves and ruined citizens? It will seem that you have not let him out of the city, but let him loose against it. Will you not order him put in chains, dragged off to death, put to death as the ultimate punishment? What, after all, stops you? Our ancestors’ practice?\n\nSECTION 28\n“But very often in our country even private citizens have put dangerous citizens to death. Or is it the laws passed about punishing Roman citizens? But in this city those who have broken with the state have never kept their rights as citizens. Or do you fear the hatred of future generations? What a fine way to repay the Roman people! You were a man known through your own achievements, with no ancestral standing to recommend you. They took you through every rank of public office and raised you to the highest authority so early in life. And now, because you fear hatred or some danger, you neglect the safety of your fellow citizens!\n\nSECTION 29\n“But if there is any reason to fear hatred, you should not fear the hatred that comes from firmness and courage more than the hatred that comes from inaction and worthlessness. When Italy is devastated by war, when cities are ravaged and houses burn, do you think you will not burn too, in a fire of hatred?”\n\nCHAPTER 12\n\nI will give a brief answer to these deeply respected words of my country and to the thoughts of those who feel the same way. Senators, if I thought the best thing to do was to put Catiline to death, I would not have given that gladiator a single hour of life. Great men and famous citizens shed the blood of Saturninus, the Gracchi, Flaccus, and many others before them. They did not stain themselves by it; they even gained honor. Surely, then, I had no need to fear that killing this murderer of his fellow citizens would bring hatred on me in the future. Even if that hatred were a very real threat to me, I have always believed that hatred earned by courage is glory, not hatred.\n\nSECTION 30\nStill, there are some in this body who either do not see the dangers ahead or pretend not to see what they do see. Their mild opinions have fed Catiline’s hopes. By refusing to believe in the conspiracy as it took shape, they made it stronger. Their influence would lead many people, not just the wicked but also the uninformed, to say I had acted cruelly and like a king if I had punished him. As things stand, I know that if he reaches Manlius’s camp, where he is heading, no one will be so stupid as not to see that a conspiracy has been formed, or so wicked as not to admit it. But I also know that killing this one man could hold back this plague on our country for a short time, not put it down forever. If he throws himself out, takes his men with him, and gathers the other ruined wrecks of men from everywhere to that same place, it will wipe out and destroy not just this fully grown plague on the state, but also the root and seed of all our troubles.\n\nSECTION 31\nCHAPTER 13\n\nSenators, we have lived with the dangers and plots of this conspiracy for a long time. But somehow all these crimes, all this long-standing madness and recklessness, have reached their full growth and burst out during my consulship. If just this one man is removed from such a large band of robbers, we may seem free of worry and fear for a short time. But the danger will remain, shut deep inside the veins and vital organs of the state. People who are seriously ill and tossed about by burning fever often seem to get relief at first if they drink cold water. Then they suffer far more severely and violently. In the same way, the disease in our country will get temporary relief from this man’s punishment, then become much worse while the others stay alive.\n\nSECTION 32\nSo let the wicked withdraw. Let them separate themselves from the decent people and gather in one place. As I have so often said, let a wall stand between them and us. Let them stop plotting against the consul in his own house, crowding around the city praetor’s tribunal, surrounding the Senate house with swords, and getting fire-darts and torches ready to burn the city. Let each man’s attitude toward the state be written on his forehead. Senators, I promise you this: we consuls will show such vigilance, you such authority, the Roman knights such courage, and all decent citizens such unity that, once Catiline has left, you will see everything exposed, brought to light, crushed, and punished.\n\nSECTION 33\nWith these omens, Catiline, go to your godless, criminal war. Let it bring complete safety to the state, disaster and destruction to you, and ruin to those who have joined you in every crime and in the murder of their country. And you, Jupiter, whom Romulus established under the same divine signs as this city, whom we rightly call the Upholder of this city and its rule: you will keep this man and his partners away from your own and the other temples, from the city’s houses and walls, and from the lives and property of all its citizens. These enemies of decent people, these foes of their country, these robbers of Italy are joined together in a pact of crime and a godless alliance. You will punish them forever, in life and in death.\n\n### Speech 2\n\nSECTION 1\nCHAPTER 1\n\nAt last, citizens, Lucius Catiline is outside Rome. Call it driving him out, letting him go, or sending him on his way with a speech as he left of his own accord. This is the man whose reckless madness breathed crime, whose wicked schemes aimed to destroy his country, whose threats against you and the city were threats of fire and the sword. He has gone away, made his exit, escaped, burst out. That monster, that unnatural creature, will no longer prepare destruction for the city walls from a position inside them. There is no disputing that we have defeated him, the sole commander of this internal war. No longer will his dagger move among our ribs. We will not have to fear him at elections on the Campus, in the Forum, in the Senate House, or within our own homes. Forcing him out of Rome dislodged him from his position. We can now fight a declared war openly against an enemy, without obstruction. By driving him from secret plots into open banditry, we have certainly ruined the man and won a great victory.\n\nSECTION 2\nImagine his disappointment. He did not leave with blood on his blade, as he had intended. We were alive when he went. His hands had been forced to let go of their weapon; the citizens were safe and Rome was still standing. How completely do you think that grief has broken him? Now he is down, citizens, flat on the ground, conscious of being beaten and discarded. Surely he keeps looking back toward the city, mourning the prey taken out of his mouth. Rome, meanwhile, seems happy to me: it has thrown up this terrible pestilence and flung it away.\n\nSECTION 3\nCHAPTER 2\n\nPerhaps someone, being the sort of person everyone ought to be, strongly condemns me on the very point over which my speech celebrates a triumph. Why did I let so dangerous an enemy leave instead of arresting him? Citizens, the fault lies in the circumstances, not in me. Long ago Lucius Catiline should have been executed, receiving the heaviest penalty. Our ancestors’ practice, the strictness of our government and the state’s own needs required that action from me. But consider how many people would not have believed my reports. How many were too foolish to give the danger a thought? How many would even defend him? How many were wicked enough to support him? Had I thought that getting rid of him would remove every danger from you, I would long ago have done it, risking not just public hatred against me but my very life.\n\nSECTION 4\nBut even you were not all convinced of the facts yet. I realized that executing him, deserved though it was, would bring such hostility on me that I could not go after his accomplices. So I brought things to the point where you could see the enemy clearly and fight him openly. You can judge how little I think we should fear that enemy outside the city from this: I am actually unhappy that he left with so small a following. If only he had taken every one of his forces! He took Tongilius, whom he began to love when the boy still wore the purple-bordered toga. He took Publicius and Minucius, whose tavern debts could not cause any disturbance in public life. But look at the men he left behind! Look at their debts, their strength and their high birth!\n\nSECTION 5\nCHAPTER 3\n\nI have little respect for his army when I compare it with the Gallic legions, the men Quintus Metellus has raised in Picenum and the Gallic district, and the forces we are preparing daily. His collection consists of desperate old men, extravagant country people, rural bankrupts, and men who chose to abandon their court appearances rather than abandon his camp. They will collapse if I show them not just our army’s battle line but even a praetor’s order. I wish he had taken the soldiers of his I see flitting around the Forum, standing outside the Senate House and even coming into the Senate: men glistening with perfume and shining in purple. If they remain here, remember that we have more to fear from these deserters from his army than from the army itself. What makes them still more frightening is that they know I understand their intentions and are not disturbed by it.\n\nSECTION 6\nI know who has been assigned Apulia, who is responsible for Etruria, who for Picenum and who for the Gallic district. I know who has asked to handle the plots for murder and arson within Rome. They are aware that all the decisions taken that earlier night have reached me. Yesterday I exposed them in the Senate. Catiline himself was frightened into flight. What are these men waiting for? They are seriously mistaken if they expect my previous mildness to last forever.\n\nCHAPTER 4\n\nMy purpose in waiting has now been achieved: all of you can see plainly that a conspiracy against the state has been formed. Unless someone really thinks that men like Catiline do not share Catiline’s views! Gentleness has no place now. The facts themselves call for strict action. I will allow one thing even at this stage: let them leave, let them go. They should not let poor Catiline pine away for want of their company. I can show them the road: he took the Aurelian Way. If they hurry, they can catch him by evening.\n\nSECTION 7\nHow fortunate the state would be if it could throw out this sewage of the city! By Hercules, removing Catiline alone seems to have relieved and revived it. Can anyone invent or imagine a form of evil or crime that he has not thought of? Search all Italy. What poisoner, gladiator, robber, hired killer, killer of a parent, forger of wills, swindler, glutton, spendthrift or adulterer is there who would not admit to having lived on the closest terms with Catiline? What disreputable woman? What corrupter of the young? What corrupt or hopeless person? Which murder in recent years took place without him? Which wicked sexual outrage did not come about through him?\n\nSECTION 8\nHas anyone ever had such power to lure young people? He himself pursued some in the most shameful way. For others he served their desires in the most disgraceful way. To some he promised sexual satisfaction, to others their parents’ deaths. He offered not just encouragement but practical help. And look how suddenly he had gathered a huge crowd of corrupt people, from the countryside as well as Rome! There was nobody crushed by debt, not only here but in any corner of Italy, whom he did not recruit into this unbelievable alliance of crime.\n\nSECTION 9\nCHAPTER 5\n\nTo see the range of his interests in quite different walks of life, consider this. Every man in a gladiator school with a little extra willingness to attempt a crime admits to being Catiline’s intimate friend. Every especially worthless, irresponsible stage performer remembers being almost his companion. Yet this same man, trained by long practice in sexual abuse and crime to endure cold, lack of food, thirst and sleeplessness, was praised as courageous by these people. He spent the resources needed for hard work and the equipment of courage on lust and recklessness instead.\n\nSECTION 10\nIf his friends follow him, if these disgraceful crowds of desperate men leave Rome, how happy we will be! How lucky the state, and how distinguished the reputation of my consulship! Their appetites have now passed any ordinary limits; their recklessness is beyond what human beings can tolerate. Murder, arson and plunder are all they think about. They have squandered their inheritances and mortgaged their possessions. They ran out of resources long ago, and recently they began running out of credit. Their appetite, though, remains as great as when they had plenty. If drink and gambling led them to seek only parties and prostitutes, they would be beyond hope, but we could still tolerate them. Who can tolerate what they are doing instead? Useless men plot against men of courage; utter fools against the wisest; drunks against the sober; sleepers against those keeping watch. They stretch out at banquets, clasp shameless women, grow sluggish with wine, stuff themselves with food, put wreaths on their heads, smear themselves with perfume and wear themselves out with sexual excess. Then they belch out talk of killing good citizens and setting the city ablaze.\n\nSECTION 11\nI am sure some doom hangs over them. The penalty their corruption, worthlessness, crime and lust have long deserved is either upon them already or certainly close at hand. Since my consulship cannot cure them, if it removes them instead it will prolong the state’s life not by some brief interval but by many centuries. We have no nation to dread, no king able to wage war against Rome’s people. One man’s courage has brought peace abroad, both on land and at sea. What remains is a war at home. The plots are inside, the danger is shut up inside, the enemy is inside. We must fight extravagance, madness and crime. Citizens, I declare myself the commander in that war. I accept the hostility of corrupt men. Wherever any cure is possible, I will find one by whatever means I can. Wherever cutting away is necessary, I will not let the disease remain to destroy the community. So they must leave or remain quiet. If they insist on remaining in Rome with their intentions unchanged, they can expect what they deserve.\n\nSECTION 12\nCHAPTER 6\n\nBut people still say, citizens, that I expelled Catiline. Were a spoken word enough to do that, I would expel the people making that claim. He must be such a frightened man, or perhaps such an unusually obedient one: a consul’s voice was more than he could take! Apparently being ordered into exile was enough to make him comply. Here is what actually happened. Yesterday I narrowly escaped assassination in my house. I called the senators together at the temple of Jupiter the Upholder and told them everything. When Catiline arrived, did a senator address him? Did anyone offer a greeting? Did anyone even give him the look one gives a bad citizen, rather than the bitterest of enemies? The most prominent members of the order went further: they vacated the benches he had approached, leaving that section completely deserted.\n\nSECTION 13\nAt that point I—the fierce consul whose bare words send citizens into exile—put a question to Catiline. Had he been at Marcus Laeca’s during the meeting held that night, or had he not? Even that supremely reckless man was convicted by his own conscience. His initial response was silence. So I brought the other facts into the open. I explained his whereabouts, his actions during that night and his arrangements for the next, showing how the entire campaign had been planned. He could not answer. Caught out, he hesitated. Why, I asked, was he delaying the departure he had been planning for so long? I knew what had gone ahead of him: the weapons, the axes and rods, the trumpets, the army’s standards, and the silver eagle for which he had even provided a sanctuary at home.\n\nSECTION 14\nWas I driving into exile a man I could see had already started a war? Presumably that centurion Manlius, with his camp in the territory of Faesulae, declared war against Rome on his own account! Presumably the camp is not waiting for Catiline to lead it! Presumably Catiline is now heading for Massilia, as they say, because he has been forced into exile, and not for that camp!\n\nCHAPTER 7\n\nWhat a miserable position it is, not just to run the state but even to keep it alive! Suppose my planning, work and personal risks have boxed Lucius Catiline in and weakened him. Suppose he suddenly takes fright, changes his mind, deserts his followers, drops the plan for war and turns away from this path of crime and fighting toward flight and exile. Will people say I stripped him of the weapons of his recklessness? That my vigilance stunned and terrified him? That I drove him from his hopes and his attempt? No: they will say an innocent man, never convicted, was driven into exile by a consul’s threats and force. And if he does it, some will want him thought unfortunate, not wicked, and me a most brutal tyrant, not an exceptionally watchful consul!\n\nSECTION 15\nCitizens, I consider it worth enduring this storm of false and unfair hatred, provided it keeps the danger of this terrible, wicked war away from you. Let people say I expelled him, so long as he actually goes into exile. But believe me: that is not where he will go. I will never ask the immortal gods to relieve the hostility toward me by letting you hear that Catiline commands a hostile army and is moving about under arms. Still, you will hear it within three days. What frightens me much more is the possibility that one day people will hate me for letting him go rather than for driving him out. Yet if people call his departure an expulsion now, imagine what those same people would say if he had been killed!\n\nSECTION 16\nIn any case, the people repeatedly announcing his journey to Massilia fear that journey more than they resent it. Their compassion never reaches the point of preferring him to join the Massilians instead of Manlius. And by Hercules, Catiline himself would choose death while committing banditry over an exile’s continued life, even if this course had never previously entered his mind. As matters stand, nothing has happened against his wishes or his calculations except this: he went out of Rome and left us living. Rather than grieve about his exile, then, let us hope for it.\n\nSECTION 17\nCHAPTER 8\n\nWhy are we spending so much time on a single enemy? He already acknowledges that he is one, and I am not afraid of him now that a wall separates us, as I always wished. Why say nothing of the men who hide their intentions, stay in Rome and live among us? If any possible way exists, I am more interested in curing these men for their own sake and reconciling them to the state than in punishing them. If they are finally willing to listen, I cannot see why that should be impossible. Citizens, I will explain what sorts of people make up those forces. Then I will offer each group whatever remedy I can through my advice and my speech.\n\nSECTION 18\nOne group owes a great deal but owns even more, and loves its property too much to settle its debts. These people look thoroughly respectable: after all, they are wealthy. But their purpose and their cause are utterly shameless. Are you to possess land, buildings, silver, slaves and everything else in abundance, yet hesitate to reduce your holdings and restore your credit? What are you waiting for? War? Do you imagine that when everything is being laid waste, your property will somehow remain untouchable? Or are you waiting for debts to be written off? Anyone expecting that from Catiline is wrong. Through my help new accounts will indeed be produced, but they will be records of auction sales! Property owners like these have no other way of saving themselves. If they had done this earlier, instead of the utter foolishness of pitting their estates’ income against the interest they owed, they would be wealthier and better citizens for us to deal with. Still, this is the group I think we need fear least. We can either change their minds, or, if they stick to their views, I think they are likelier to offer prayers against the state than take up weapons against it.\n\nSECTION 19\nCHAPTER 9\n\nThe second group, despite being weighed down by debt, looks forward to holding absolute power. They want control of affairs. They believe upheaval will bring them the offices they have no hope of attaining while public life is peaceful. They need the same warning as everybody else: give up any expectation of succeeding. First, I myself am awake, on the spot and planning for the public good. Next, good citizens have great courage; the social orders are strongly united; we have an enormous number of supporters and substantial forces of soldiers besides. Finally, the gods will be here to help this unbeaten people, its glorious empire and its beautiful city against crime on such a scale. But suppose these men did obtain what they want with such mad eagerness. Surrounded by the city’s ashes and citizens’ blood, do they expect to become consuls or dictators or even kings? That is what their criminal, wicked minds long for. Can they not see that, even if they obtain it, they will necessarily have to hand it over to some runaway slave or gladiator?\n\nSECTION 20\nThe third group is getting old, but military training still keeps it strong. Manlius, whom Catiline is now joining, belongs to this class. These are men from Sulla’s colonies. I recognize that the colonies taken as a whole consist of excellent citizens and extremely courageous men. But these particular settlers showed off their sudden, unexpected wealth with extravagant and arrogant spending. They built as though they were rich, took pleasure in choice estates, large slave households and elaborate dinners, and fell so deeply into debt that only bringing Sulla up from the dead could save them. They have also led some poor, needy country people to hope for a return to the plundering of those earlier days. I put both sorts in the same class of looters and robbers. My warning is to stop this madness and stop thinking of dictatorships and lists of people marked for death. The memory of that period’s suffering has been burned so deeply into the community that, to my mind, not just human beings but even farm animals would refuse to endure it again.\n\nSECTION 21\nCHAPTER 10\n\nGroup four is undeniably troublesome, with all sorts mixed together. Long-standing pressure has kept these men down; they never manage to rise out of it. Ancient debts leave them tottering, whether their trouble comes from doing nothing, mishandling business or simply spending too much. Worn down by commitments to appear in court, legal judgments and sales of their belongings, many are said to be making their way to the camp from Rome and the farms. To me they look like persistent repudiators of debt, not formidable soldiers. If falling is inevitable because standing is beyond them, they should fall promptly. But they must do it without making the state, or even the people next door, feel the effects. What I cannot understand is their reasoning: why should being unable to lead a respectable life make a disgraceful death desirable? Why imagine that destruction alongside many others will be less painful than destruction on their own?\n\nSECTION 22\nThe fifth group consists of people who kill their own families, hired murderers and, in short, criminals of every kind. I am not calling them back from Catiline. They cannot be torn away from him anyway. Let them perish as bandits: there are too many for the prison to hold. The final group is last not just in the list but in its character and way of life. It is Catiline’s very own, drawn from his chosen men—or rather from his embraces and his lap. You see them with carefully combed hair and gleaming bodies, either without beards or with beards neatly tended. Their tunics have sleeves and reach their feet. What they wrap around themselves looks like sails, not togas. Every bit of effort they put into life, every hour of hard work staying awake, is spent on dinners that last until dawn.\n\nSECTION 23\nThese groups contain every gambler and adulterer, everyone filthy and shameless. These elegant, pampered boys have learned more than love-making and being loved, more than dancing and singing. They have also learned to brandish daggers and spread poison. Unless they leave or die, you should realize that even Catiline’s death would leave this breeding ground of future Catilines within the state. Still, what do these miserable people think they are doing? Will they take their little women along to camp? How could they bear being without them, particularly now that the nights are like this? How will they stand the Apennines, the frost and snow? Unless they think learning to dance naked at dinner parties will make winter easier to endure!\n\nSECTION 24\nCHAPTER 11\n\nWhat a war to be terrified of, when this is the company of prostitutes that will serve as Catiline’s bodyguard! Citizens, line up your protective forces and armies against these splendid troops of his. First set your consuls and commanders against that worn-out, wounded gladiator. Then bring out Italy’s finest and strongest men against that defeated, battered band of shipwrecked people. The cities of our colonies and municipalities will answer Catiline’s wooded hilltops. There is no need for me to compare the rest of your resources, equipment and defenses with that bandit’s poverty and lack of means.\n\nSECTION 25\nPut aside what we have and he does not: the Senate, Rome’s knights, the city, the public treasury and its revenues, the whole of Italy, every province and the nations abroad. Compare just the causes themselves as they clash. That comparison alone shows how badly beaten his side is. On ours, a sense of shame fights against their outrageous behavior; sexual restraint against sexual corruption; trustworthiness against deception; duty to gods and family against crime; firmness against madness; respectability against disgrace; self-control against lust. In short, fairness, moderation, courage, good judgment and every virtue are struggling against injustice, extravagance, cowardice, rashness and every vice. Finally, plenty faces poverty, good planning faces ruined judgment, a healthy mind faces insanity, and reasonable hope faces despair about everything. In a struggle and battle like that, even if human commitment gave out, would not the gods themselves make all these great vices yield to those splendid virtues?\n\nSECTION 26\nCHAPTER 12\n\nCitizens, this being the situation, do as I told you earlier: protect your houses with watchers and guards. I have already arranged and planned adequate protection for the city without frightening you or causing any disorder. I have informed all your fellow citizens in the colonies and municipalities about Catiline’s departure by night. They will have no difficulty defending their towns and territories. The gladiators, whom he thought he could rely on most, will remain under our control, even though their intentions are better than those of some patricians. Anticipating this, I sent Quintus Metellus ahead into the Gallic district and Picenum. He will either crush the man or stop every move and attempt he makes. As for the remaining decisions, preparations and actions, we will now refer them to the Senate. You can see it being summoned.\n\nSECTION 27\nLet me now warn the men who stayed in Rome—or rather, the men Catiline left here to endanger the city and every one of you. They may be enemies, but since they were born citizens I want them warned repeatedly. If anyone has thought my mildness too lax until now, it had a purpose: to wait until the hidden danger broke into the open. From this point onward I cannot forget that this is my country, that I am consul to these people, and that I must either live among them or die for them. Nobody is guarding the gates or waiting in ambush along the road. If anyone wants to leave, I can look the other way. But let someone make a move inside Rome, and let me catch him in any act—or even the beginning of an attempt—against his country. He will discover that this city has watchful consuls, outstanding magistrates and a resolute Senate. It has weapons. It has the prison our ancestors intended to punish crimes that are both wicked and openly proved.\n\nSECTION 28\nCHAPTER 13\n\nOur handling of everything will settle the largest matters while causing the smallest disruption, and overcome the worst dangers without disorder. It will end a civil war, a war within our own country, greater and more cruel than any remembered by humankind, with me alone directing and commanding in civilian dress. Citizens, my approach will spare even wrongdoers in this city from paying the penalty for their crimes, if that can possibly be done. But flagrant reckless force, or danger hanging over our homeland, may leave me no choice but to give up that mild approach. In that event I will certainly accomplish what one can scarcely dare to hope for in a war so grave and full of traps. No decent citizen will lose his life. Penalizing a small number will make it possible to keep every one of you safe.\n\nSECTION 29\nCitizens, I make these promises without relying on my own foresight or human planning. I rely on the many clear signs the immortal gods have given. Following their guidance, I have reached this hope and this decision. They are no longer protecting us from a distant enemy abroad, as they once used to do, from far away. They are present here, using their divine power and help to defend their own temples and our city’s buildings. Pray to them, citizens. Honor them and appeal to them. They wanted this city to be the most beautiful, prosperous and powerful of all. Now that every hostile force has been defeated both by land and by sea, ask them to protect it against the wicked crime of its most corrupt citizens.\n\n### Speech 3\n\nSECTION 1\nCHAPTER 1\n\nCitizens, today you see our country, all your lives, your property and possessions, your wives and children, and this home of a glorious empire, this exceptionally prosperous and beautiful city, rescued from fire and sword and almost from the jaws of death. The immortal gods’ great love for you, and my efforts, plans, and risks, have saved all this and restored it to you.\n\nSECTION 2\nThe days when our lives are saved are just as happy and important to us as the days when we are born. Being saved brings certain joy; what birth will bring is uncertain. We are born without knowing it, but we feel the pleasure of being saved. Our affection and praise have raised the founder of this city to the rank of the immortal gods. Surely, then, you and your descendants should honor the man who saved this same city after it had been founded and had grown. We have put out the fires that had almost been set all around the city, its temples, shrines, houses, and walls. We have also blunted the swords drawn against our country and pushed their points away from your throats.\n\nSECTION 3\nMy efforts have brought these matters to light in the Senate, exposed them, and established the facts. I will now give you a brief account. You do not yet know what happened and are waiting to hear. You will learn how serious the plot was, how clear the evidence is, and how it was tracked down and caught.\n\nTo begin with, a few days ago Catiline rushed out of the city. He left his partners in crime behind in Rome as the fiercest leaders of this wicked war. Since then, citizens, I have kept watch and planned ahead without stopping, to see how we could stay safe amid such serious and deeply hidden plots.\n\nCHAPTER 2\n\nWhen I was driving Catiline out of the city—I am no longer afraid of the resentment that word may cause; I have more reason to fear resentment over his leaving alive—when I wanted him driven out of the city, I thought the rest of the conspirators would either leave with him or be weak and helpless without him if they stayed.\n\nSECTION 4\nBut I saw that the men I knew to be burning with the greatest madness and criminal intent were still here among us in Rome. I spent every day and night finding out and watching what they were doing and planning. The unbelievable scale of the crime made my account less convincing to your ears. So I worked to secure such a firm grasp of the facts that you would at last turn your minds to protecting yourselves when you saw the crime itself with your own eyes. I learned that Publius Lentulus had approached the envoys of the Allobroges to start a war beyond the Alps and an uprising in Gaul. They had been sent back to their own people in Gaul, with instructions to visit Catiline on the same journey and take him letters and messages. Titus Volturcius had been assigned to travel with them and had been given a letter for Catiline. I thought this gave me the opportunity to achieve what was hardest of all, something I had always prayed to the immortal gods for: not just I, but the Senate and you as well, could catch the whole plot in the act, with clear proof.\n\nSECTION 5\nSo yesterday I summoned the praetors Lucius Flaccus and Gaius Pomptinus, very brave men deeply devoted to our country. I explained the situation and told them what I wanted done. Their views on every public issue were honorable and outstanding, and they accepted the job without objection or delay. At dusk they secretly reached the Mulvian Bridge. There they split into two groups and took up positions in nearby country houses, with the Tiber and the bridge between them. They themselves had brought many brave men to the same place without raising anyone’s suspicions. I had also sent several picked young men from the prefecture of Reate, armed with swords. I regularly rely on their help to protect the country.\n\nSECTION 6\nMeanwhile, near the end of the third watch of the night, the Allobrogan envoys, with a large escort and Volturcius, were just starting to cross the Mulvian Bridge. They were attacked. They and our men both drew their swords. Only the praetors knew about the plan; the others did not.\n\nCHAPTER 3\n\nThen Pomptinus and Flaccus intervened and stopped the fighting that had begun. All the letters carried by the group were handed over to the praetors with their seals intact. The men themselves were arrested and brought to me as dawn was breaking. I immediately summoned Cimber Gabinius, the most shameless planner of all these crimes. He still suspected nothing. Lucius Statilius was summoned next, and Cethegus after him. Lentulus was the last to arrive, presumably because, unusually for him, he had stayed up late the previous night handing out letters.\n\nSECTION 7\nThe city’s leading and most distinguished men had heard the news and had come to my house in large numbers early that morning. They wanted me to open the letters before taking them to the Senate. Otherwise, if nothing were found in them, it might look as though I had rashly caused all this alarm in the city. I refused to do anything that would keep a matter concerning public danger from being brought, intact, before the public council. Even if the reports I had received had not been borne out, citizens, I did not think I needed to fear being too careful when the country faced such great dangers. As you saw, I quickly called a well-attended meeting of the Senate.\n\nSECTION 8\nMeanwhile, acting at once on information from the Allobroges, I sent the praetor Gaius Sulpicius, a brave man, to remove any weapons in Cethegus’s house. He brought out a very large number of daggers and swords.\n\nCHAPTER 4\n\nI brought in Volturcius without the Gauls. On the Senate’s orders, I promised him immunity in the name of the state and urged him to tell us what he knew without fear. He was badly frightened and had barely recovered when he spoke. He said he had instructions and a letter from Publius Lentulus for Catiline. Catiline was to enlist the help of slaves and come to the city with his army as soon as possible. The plan was to set the city on fire in every district, following their assigned tasks and areas, and massacre the citizens without limit. Catiline was then to be ready to intercept those fleeing and join forces with these leaders inside the city.\n\nSECTION 9\nThe Gauls were then brought in. They said that Publius Lentulus, Cethegus, and Statilius had given them an oath and letters for their people. These men, along with Lucius Cassius, had instructed them to send cavalry to Italy as soon as possible. The conspirators would have no shortage of infantry themselves. Lentulus had assured them that the Sibylline prophecies and the answers of the diviners showed that he was the third Cornelius destined to gain royal power and control of this city. Cinna and Sulla had come before him. Lentulus had also said that this year was fated to see the destruction of the city and its empire. It was the tenth year since the acquittal of the Vestal Virgins, and the twentieth since the burning of the Capitol.\n\nSECTION 10\nThey said that Cethegus had disagreed with the others on this point: Lentulus and the rest wanted to carry out the massacre and burn the city during the Saturnalia, but Cethegus thought that was too long to wait.\n\nCHAPTER 5\n\nTo keep the account short, citizens, we ordered the letters said to have been given by each man to be brought out. First we showed his to Cethegus. He identified his seal. We cut the string and read it. In his own handwriting, he told the Senate and people of the Allobroges that he would do what he had promised their envoys. He asked them in turn to do what their envoys had agreed to do for him. A little earlier, Cethegus had at least offered some answer about the swords and daggers found in his house. He had said that he had always been interested in well-made iron tools. But when the letter was read, his guilty conscience broke and crushed him, and he suddenly fell silent. Statilius was brought in and identified both his seal and his handwriting. His letter was read out. It said much the same thing, and he confessed. Then I showed Lentulus his letter and asked if he recognized the seal. He nodded. “It certainly is a familiar seal,” I said. “It is the image of your grandfather, a most distinguished man, who loved his country and his fellow citizens more than anything. Even without a voice, his image should have called you back from such a terrible crime.”\n\nSECTION 11\nHis letter to the Senate and people of the Allobroges was read out in the same way. I gave him a chance to say anything he wished about these matters. At first he declined. Some time later, when all the evidence had been presented and made known, he stood up. He asked the Gauls what dealings he had with them and why they had come to his house. He put the same questions to Volturcius. They answered him briefly and firmly, saying who had introduced them to him and how often they had visited. They asked him whether he had said nothing to them about the Sibylline prophecies. Then, suddenly, his crime drove him out of his mind, and he showed how powerful a guilty conscience can be. Although he could have denied this, he unexpectedly confessed, to everyone’s surprise. His ability and his skill in speaking, always his strong points, failed him. So did the shamelessness and dishonesty in which he surpassed everyone. The force of a crime so plainly exposed and proved overwhelmed them all.\n\nSECTION 12\nThen Volturcius suddenly called for the letter that he said Lentulus had given him for Catiline, and ordered it to be opened. Lentulus was deeply shaken, but he still acknowledged both his seal and his handwriting. The letter had no name on it, but read as follows: “The man I have sent to you will tell you who I am. Be a man, and consider what a position you have put yourself in. Look at what your situation now requires, and make sure you get help from everyone, even the lowest.” Gabinius was brought in next. At first he began answering shamelessly, but in the end he denied none of the Gauls’ accusations.\n\nSECTION 13\nTo me, citizens, the letters, seals, handwriting, and finally each man’s confession seemed absolutely certain evidence and proof of the crime. But their complexions, their eyes, their expressions, and their silence were even more certain. They were so stunned, stared at the ground so fixedly, and occasionally glanced at each other so furtively that they seemed to be informing against themselves rather than being accused by others.\n\nCHAPTER 6\n\nOnce the evidence had been presented and made known, citizens, I asked the Senate what should be done to protect the country as a whole. Its leading members proposed very strong and firm measures. The Senate adopted them without a single difference of opinion. The Senate’s decree has not yet been written out in full, so I will tell you from memory, citizens, what the Senate decided.\n\nSECTION 14\nFirst, I am thanked in the strongest terms because my courage, judgment, and foresight have freed the country from the greatest dangers. Next, the praetors Lucius Flaccus and Gaius Pomptinus are rightly and deservedly praised for their brave and loyal service to me. My colleague, a brave man, is also praised for excluding those involved in this conspiracy from his own counsels and those of the state. The Senate decided that Publius Lentulus should be placed in custody after resigning his praetorship. Gaius Cethegus, Lucius Statilius, and Publius Gabinius, who were all present, were also to be placed in custody. The same decree applied to Lucius Cassius, who had demanded charge of burning the city; Marcus Ceparius, who, according to the evidence, had been assigned Apulia, where he was to stir up the shepherds; Publius Furius, one of the colonists Lucius Sulla had settled at Faesulae; Quintus Annius Chilo, who had constantly worked with this Furius in trying to win over the Allobroges; and Publius Umbrenus, a freedman who was known to have first taken the Gauls to Gabinius. The Senate showed such leniency, citizens, that it believed the country could be saved by punishing nine thoroughly corrupt men. With so great a conspiracy and so many enemies within our country, it thought this would bring the others back to their senses.\n\nSECTION 15\nA public thanksgiving to the immortal gods for their extraordinary services was also decreed in my name. I am the first civilian to receive this honor since the city’s foundation. The decree used these words: “Because I had saved the city from fires, the citizens from massacre, and Italy from war.” There is this difference between that thanksgiving and all the others: the others were ordered for successes in serving the state, but this one alone for saving it. And the first thing that needed to be done has already been done and completed. Once the evidence had been exposed, Publius Lentulus, by his own confessions and the Senate’s judgment, had lost not just his rights as praetor but also those of a citizen. Still, he resigned his office. The distinguished Gaius Marius had felt no religious scruple that prevented him from killing the praetor Gaius Glaucia, against whom no decree had been passed by name. By making Lentulus a private citizen, we freed ourselves from any such scruple about punishing him.\n\nSECTION 16\nCHAPTER 7\n\nNow, citizens, you hold the wicked leaders of this deeply criminal and dangerous war under arrest and in your power. With these dangers driven from the city, you should understand that all Catiline’s forces, hopes, and resources have collapsed. When I was driving him out of the city, citizens, I saw this clearly: once Catiline was removed, I had no reason to fear Publius Lentulus’s sleepiness, Lucius Cassius’s fat, or Gaius Cethegus’s reckless madness. Of all of them, Catiline was the one man to fear, but only as long as he remained inside the city walls. He knew everything and how to approach everyone. He could speak to people, test them, and win them over, and he had the nerve to do it. His mind was suited to planning crimes, and his tongue and hands were ready to carry out his plans. He already had particular men selected and assigned to perform particular jobs. Nor did he think that giving an order meant it had been carried out. He attended to everything himself, went where he was needed, stayed awake, and worked hard. He could bear cold, thirst, and hunger.\n\nSECTION 17\nHere was a man so energetic, so daring, so prepared, so cunning, so watchful in crime, and so hardworking in a desperate cause. I forced him out of his plots inside the city and into an armed band of robbers in the field. If I had not done that, I will say what I think, citizens: I could not easily have lifted this enormous weight of trouble off your necks. He would not have set the Saturnalia as our date. He would not have announced the day of the country’s destruction and doom so far in advance. He would not have allowed his seal or his letters to be seized as clear witnesses to his crime. Instead, in his absence, things were handled so that no theft in a private house was ever detected as openly as this conspiracy against the whole country has been caught and proved. If Catiline had stayed in the city until today, then, although I confronted and blocked every plan of his while he was here, we would, to put it mildly, have had to fight him. With that enemy inside the city, we could never have freed our country from such great dangers so peacefully, so calmly, and so quietly.\n\nSECTION 18\nCHAPTER 8\n\nStill, citizens, although I managed all these matters, they seem to have been planned and carried out under the direction and guidance of the immortal gods. We can infer this because it hardly seems possible that human judgment could have directed affairs of such importance. But at this time the gods have also brought us help and support so directly that we can almost see them with our eyes. I will leave aside the blazing torches seen at night in the west and the glow in the sky. I will pass over the lightning strikes and earthquakes and the other events that have occurred in such numbers during our consulship that the immortal gods seemed to be foretelling what is happening now. But what I am about to tell you, citizens, certainly must not be passed over or left out.\n\nSECTION 19\nYou surely remember that, during the consulship of Cotta and Torquatus, several things on the Capitol were struck by lightning. Images of the gods were knocked from their places, statues of men of earlier times were thrown down, and bronze tablets recording the laws were melted. Even Romulus, the founder of this city, was struck. You remember his gilded statue on the Capitol, showing him as a small nursing child reaching with his mouth for a she-wolf’s teats. At that time, diviners gathered from all over Etruria. They said that massacre, fires, the destruction of the laws, civil war within our country, and the downfall of the entire city and empire were approaching. They said this could be prevented only if the immortal gods were appeased in every way and used their divine power to change what was practically fate itself.\n\nSECTION 20\nSo, following their answers, games were held for ten days, and nothing that could help appease the gods was left undone. The diviners also ordered a larger image of Jupiter to be made and set up in a high place. Unlike the earlier image, it was to face east. They said they hoped that, if the statue you see looked toward the sunrise, the Forum, and the Senate house, the secret plans against the safety of the city and its empire would be brought to light, so that the Senate and the Roman people could see them clearly. The consuls of that year contracted to have the statue set up. But the work was so slow that it was not put in place either under the previous consuls or during our term before today.\n\nSECTION 21\nCHAPTER 9\n\nWho here can be so opposed to the truth, so rash, so out of his mind as to deny that everything we see, and especially this city, is governed by the direction and power of the immortal gods? The diviners had answered that massacre, fires, and the destruction of the country were being planned, and by citizens. Some people then thought these crimes too enormous to believe. Now you have learned that wicked citizens not only planned them but actually set about carrying them out. And is the gods’ presence not so clear in this next event that it seems to have happened at the direction of Jupiter, Best and Greatest? This morning, on my orders, the conspirators and those giving evidence against them were being led through the Forum to the Temple of Concord. At that very moment the statue was being set up. Once it was in place, facing you and the Senate, both you and the Senate saw every plan against everyone’s safety brought to light and exposed.\n\nSECTION 22\nThose men deserve all the more hatred and punishment for trying to bring deadly, wicked fires not just to your homes and houses but also to the temples and shrines of the gods. If I said that I had stopped them, I would claim too much for myself, and my claim would be unbearable. It was Jupiter, Jupiter himself, who stopped them. He wanted the Capitol, these temples, this entire city, and all of you to be safe. With the immortal gods as my guides, I formed this purpose and resolve and reached this decisive evidence. Consider the attempt to win over the Allobroges. Lentulus and the other enemies inside our country would surely never have been so foolish as to entrust such important matters and letters to strangers and barbarians if the immortal gods had not stripped these wildly daring men of their judgment. And what about this? These Gauls came from a state that had hardly been brought to peace. They are the one people left who seem both able and willing to make war on the Roman people. Yet they rejected the prospect of power and the greatest advantages, offered to them without their asking by men of patrician rank. They put your safety ahead of their own strength. Do you not think the gods made this happen, especially since the Gauls could have defeated us not by fighting, but simply by keeping quiet?\n\nSECTION 23\nCHAPTER 10\n\nSo, citizens, since a thanksgiving has been decreed at every sacred couch of the gods, celebrate those days with your wives and children. Many honors have often been rightly paid to the immortal gods as their due. But none have ever been more deserved than these. You have been rescued from a most cruel and miserable death, rescued without killing, without bloodshed, without an army, without a battle. You have won as civilians. I alone, also a civilian, was your leader and commander.\n\nSECTION 24\nThink back, citizens, over all our civil conflicts—not just those you have heard about, but those you remember and have seen yourselves. Lucius Sulla crushed Publius Sulpicius. He dealt with Gaius Marius, this city’s protector, and many brave men by driving some from the country and killing others. The consul Gnaeus Octavius used force to drive his colleague out of the city. This whole place was overflowing with heaps of bodies and the blood of citizens. Later, Cinna and Marius won. Then the murder of our most distinguished men put out the brightest lights of our community. Later, Sulla avenged the cruelty of that victory. There is no need even to say how many citizens were lost or how much the country suffered. Marcus Lepidus broke with Quintus Catulus, a very distinguished and brave man. It was not so much his own death as the deaths of the others that brought grief to the country.\n\nSECTION 25\n[Yet all those] conflicts aimed not to destroy the state but to change it. Those men did not want there to be no state, but to be the leaders of the state that existed. They did not want this city to burn down, but to prosper in it themselves. Yet every one of those conflicts, none of which sought the country’s destruction, was settled not by restoring harmony but by slaughtering citizens. This war alone was the greatest and cruelest in human memory. No barbarian people has ever fought such a war against its own people. Lentulus, Catiline, Cethegus, and Cassius laid down this rule for it: everyone who could remain safe if the city survived was to be counted as an enemy. In this war, citizens, I acted so as to keep you all safe. Your enemies expected that only those citizens who escaped unlimited slaughter would survive, and only those parts of the city that the flames could not reach. But I saved both the city and its citizens whole and unharmed.\n\nSECTION 26\nCHAPTER 11\n\nFor these great achievements, citizens, I will ask you for no reward for courage, no mark of honor, and no monument to my credit, except an everlasting memory of this day. I want all my triumphs, all my honorary decorations, all my monuments to glory, and all my marks of distinction to be stored and set up in your minds. Nothing mute can please me, nothing silent, nothing, in short, of a kind that less deserving people can also obtain. Your memory, citizens, will nourish my achievements. People’s conversations will make them grow. Written records will give them lasting strength as time goes on. I believe that the city’s safety and the memory of my consulship have been given the same lifespan, which I hope will last forever. Two citizens have appeared in this country at the same time: one to set the boundaries of your empire by the regions of the sky, not of the earth; the other to preserve the home and seat of that empire.\n\nSECTION 27\nCHAPTER 12\n\nBut what I have done leaves me in a different situation, with different prospects, from men who have fought wars abroad. I have to live with the people I have defeated and subdued. Those men left their enemies dead or crushed. So it is your responsibility, citizens, to make sure that, while other men rightly benefit from their deeds, mine never bring me harm. I made sure that the criminal and wicked intentions of these utterly reckless men could not harm you. It is for you to make sure they do not harm me. Still, citizens, those men can no longer do me personally any harm. The support I have secured forever among good citizens is strong. My standing in the country is high and will always defend me without a word. The power of conscience is great. Those who ignore it will expose themselves when they try to hurt me.\n\nSECTION 28\nI am determined, citizens, not to give way to anyone’s recklessness, and always to take the initiative against every wrongdoer. But if every attack by enemies within our country, driven back from you, turns against me alone, you will have to consider, citizens, what position you want men to be in from now on when they have faced resentment and every danger to keep you safe. For myself, what more could I gain to make life rewarding? In particular, I see no higher point I would want to reach, either in the honors you bestow or in the glory that courage brings.\n\nSECTION 29\nI will certainly make sure, citizens, that, as a private citizen, I defend and add distinction to what I achieved as consul. If saving the country has brought me any resentment, it must hurt those who feel it and add to my glory. In short, I will act in public life with my achievements always in mind. I will make sure people see that they were the result of courage, not chance. Citizens, it is now night. Pay your respects to Jupiter, the guardian of this city and of you, and go back to your homes. Although the danger has now been driven away, still protect your homes with guards and watches just as you did last night. I will make sure, citizens, that you do not have to keep doing this for long and that you can live in lasting peace.\n\n### Speech 4\n\nSECTION 1\nCHAPTER 1\n\nSenators, I can see you all looking at me, your faces and eyes turned my way. Your worries concern not just yourselves and the state. Even if that danger passes, you are worried about what may happen to me. Your good will gives me pleasure in trouble and comfort in suffering. But I beg you, by the gods who never die, to stop worrying about that. Put my survival out of your thoughts. Think instead about yourselves and your children. If being consul means that I must face every bitter experience, every suffering and torture, I will face them. I will do so gladly as well as courageously, so long as my work brings security and a position of honor to you and to Rome’s people.\n\nSECTION 2\nI am a consul, senators, who has never been safe from deadly plots anywhere. Not in the Forum, the home of justice. Not on the Campus, made sacred by the taking of omens for consular elections. Not in the Senate House, the ultimate place of help for every nation. Not in my own house, the refuge everyone normally has, or in my bed, meant for sleep. Not even here in the seat that honors my office. I have said nothing about much of this. I have put up with much and made many concessions. When you were frightened, I put many things right by accepting suffering myself. Suppose, then, that the gods intended this as the outcome of my time as consul: that I would save you and Rome’s people from a dreadful slaughter; save your wives, children and the Vestal Virgins from the worst mistreatment; save the temples, shrines and this beautiful country we all belong to from a loathsome fire; save the whole of Italy from warfare and destruction. If so, let me undergo whatever fate awaits me personally. Prophets persuaded Publius Lentulus that his name marked him out to destroy the state. Why, then, should I not welcome the thought that my consulship has proved almost marked out by fate to save the Roman people?\n\nSECTION 3\nCHAPTER 2\n\nSenators, your business is to protect yourselves and plan for your country’s future. Preserve your lives, your families and your possessions. Uphold the Roman people’s good name and security. Give up trying to spare me. Stop making me your concern. For one thing, I ought to expect the gods who protect this city to repay me as my conduct deserves. For another, if something does happen, I will be ready to die without losing my composure. A courageous man cannot die disgracefully. Someone who has attained the consulship cannot die before his time, nor can a wise man die unhappily. I am not, however, a man without feelings. The sorrow of my dear, devoted brother standing here affects me, as do the tears of all the men you see gathered around my seat. Again and again my mind goes home to my wife, out of her senses with fear, and my daughter, overcome by it. I think of my small son: it seems to me that the state holds him close as a guarantee of my consulship. I also think of my son-in-law, there in front of me, waiting for the day’s outcome. All of them affect me. But the effect is to make me want them all to survive with you, even at the cost of my being struck down, rather than have them and us destroyed together when the state falls.\n\nSECTION 4\nSo put your strength behind the state’s survival, senators. Consider all the storms ahead if you do not take care now. This is no case of Tiberius Gracchus facing danger and your severe judgment for seeking another term as tribune. Nor of Gaius Gracchus for trying to mobilize the land-reform party. Nor of Lucius Saturninus for murdering Gaius Memmius. The prisoners in our hands stayed in Rome so that they could set it on fire, murder every senator and receive Catiline. We have the letters, the seal impressions and the writing itself. We even have a confession from each man. Approaches are being made to the Allobroges; slaves are being incited; a summons is going out to Catiline. Their plan, in short, is to kill everybody. No survivor is to remain even to grieve for the name of the Roman people or lament the destruction of this great empire.\n\nSECTION 5\nCHAPTER 3\n\nWe learned all this from the witnesses, and the defendants admitted it. Your own decisions have already settled the matter repeatedly. First came your exceptionally warm thanks to me and your formal declaration that my courage and attention had uncovered the conspiracy of these desperate men. Then you required Publius Lentulus to give up his office as praetor. After that you ordered his detention, along with the others whose conduct you had judged. Above all, you voted to hold a thanksgiving on my behalf. No one wearing civilian dress had been honored that way before me. Finally, only yesterday you granted substantial rewards to the Allobroges’ representatives and Titus Volturcius. Taken together, these actions leave no doubt: you have passed judgment against the individuals you specifically ordered into custody.\n\nSECTION 6\nEven so, senators, I decided to submit both issues to you as though nothing had yet been settled: what you think of the crime, and what punishment you recommend. I will say first what my office requires. For a long time I could see a great madness spreading in public life, with unfamiliar troubles being stirred together and set in motion. But I never imagined citizens were organizing anything as vast and deadly as this conspiracy. Whatever the facts, and whichever way your thoughts and votes turn, you have to settle it before dark. You can see the scale of the crime reported to you. You are very wrong if you think only a handful are connected with it. This evil has spread farther than people realize. It has traveled throughout Italy, crossed the Alps as well, and quietly worked its way into many provinces already. You will never put it down by holding back and postponing action. Choose whatever method you wish, but punish it without delay.\n\nSECTION 7\nCHAPTER 4\n\nAt present there are two opinions before us. Decimus Silanus proposes death for the men who attempted to destroy everything here. Gaius Caesar excludes execution but accepts the harshest aspects of every other punishment. Both men are taking the strictest possible position, appropriate to their standing and the seriousness of events. Silanus thinks these men should not be allowed another instant alive, breathing the air that everyone shares. They tried to take life from every one of us and from Rome’s people, abolish our power and wipe out our very name. He remembers repeated occasions when the state has used this penalty on criminal citizens. Caesar’s understanding is different. In his view the immortal gods provided death not to punish us but as something nature makes inevitable, or as relief from suffering and hardship. That explains why wise men have always accepted it willingly, and brave men have often positively welcomed it. Confinement, on the other hand, especially confinement for the rest of one’s life, was surely devised to punish an exceptionally wicked crime. Caesar wants the prisoners divided up among the municipalities. Ordering the towns to do this seems unfair; asking them seems difficult.\n\nSECTION 8\nVote for it nonetheless, if you think fit. I will take the task on, and I hope to find people who regard refusal, not compliance, as beneath their dignity when everyone’s safety is at stake. Caesar would impose a serious penalty on a town if one of its prisoners broke free. He would put frightening restrictions around the prisoners, suited to the wickedness of desperate men. He stipulates that nobody, whether acting through a vote of the senators or of the people, may make the condemned men’s punishment lighter. He removes even their hope, ordinarily the last comfort that misery leaves a person. Their possessions, too, are to become public property. These criminals would keep only their lives. To take life away instead would, through one painful moment, release them from numerous mental and bodily sufferings and all the consequences of their crimes. That is why people in ancient times wanted there to be certain punishments of this sort for the wicked after death: they wanted wrongdoing to face some prospect of terror during life. Evidently they understood that death itself was nothing to be scared of if those punishments were taken away.\n\nSECTION 9\nCHAPTER 5\n\nI understand my own stake in this, senators. Caesar has chosen the political course regarded as supporting the people. If you accept his recommendation, having him put forward and vouch for it may mean fewer popular attacks for me to fear. Choosing the alternative may, I suspect, make more trouble for me. But whatever danger I calculate for myself must give way to the public interest. In Caesar’s recommendation we have, as we should expect from his standing and his family’s greatness, a guarantee of continuing loyalty to the state. We can now distinguish the irresponsible behavior of platform speakers from a mind genuinely devoted to the people and their survival.\n\nSECTION 10\nOne man who wants a reputation as a people’s champion is, I notice, absent. Presumably he wishes to avoid giving an opinion in a capital case involving Roman citizens. Yet two days ago he ordered Roman citizens to be held, voted a thanksgiving for me, and yesterday gave the witnesses exceptionally large rewards. When someone votes to detain the defendant, congratulate the investigator and reward the witness, surely his judgment on the entire affair and the case is beyond doubt. Caesar recognizes, however, that the Sempronian law was made to protect Roman citizens. Anyone who becomes an enemy of the state cannot remain a citizen at all. Even the author of that law, he recognizes, paid the penalty to the state on the people’s orders. Nor does Caesar regard lavish, spendthrift Lentulus as eligible even for the title of people’s champion, after his savage and merciless planning against Rome’s people and against the city’s existence. Although an extremely gentle and mild man, he has no hesitation in putting Publius Lentulus in darkness and confinement forever. He also makes a rule for the future: nobody may boast of easing this prisoner’s sentence and later pose as a popular leader by ruining the people of Rome. Confiscation comes too, so that bodily destitution and begging will follow all their mental suffering.\n\nSECTION 11\nCHAPTER 6\n\nIf this is your decision, then, you will give me someone the people are fond of and happy to hear as a companion when I address them. If you favor Silanus instead, the people will readily absolve both you and me from blame for cruelty. I will make good the argument that his course was far gentler. Really, senators, where is the cruelty in punishing a crime of such enormous wickedness? My own feelings guide my judgment. As truly as I hope to share a safe republic with you, my forcefulness here comes not from a taste for brutality—who is gentler than I am?—but from an exceptional feeling for human beings and their suffering. In my mind’s eye the city, which gives light to the world and stands as the stronghold of every nation, suddenly collapses in one great blaze. I see miserable piles of dead citizens left without burial in a homeland itself buried. Cethegus’s face and his mad delight in murdering you keep appearing before me.\n\nSECTION 12\nThen I imagine Lentulus on the throne: he confessed himself that this was what the prophecies had led him to expect. I imagine Gabinius beside him as his courtier in purple and Catiline arriving at the head of troops. I shudder at the cries of married women, at boys and girls running away, at the outrage inflicted on Vesta’s virgins. Because I find all this so deeply wretched and deserving of pity, I will be severe and forceful against those who wanted to do it. Consider a head of household whose slave had killed his children, whose wife had been murdered and whose house had been set alight. If he failed to punish the slaves with the greatest severity, would we call him kind and compassionate, or utterly cruel and inhuman? I would call him hard and heartless if he did not relieve his own torment and grief by making the guilty suffer and feel pain. Our position is the same. These men intended the slaughter of our families and ourselves. They tried to wipe out every individual home and the home the whole state shares. They meant to establish the Allobroges as a nation where our city now stands, amid the ashes of our empire after its burning. Acting against them with the greatest determination will earn us the name of compassionate men. Choosing a softer course will mean being known for the worst cruelty as country and citizens are destroyed.\n\nSECTION 13\nUnless, perhaps, someone found Lucius Caesar too cruel two days ago? He is exceptionally brave and devoted to the republic. His sister is an excellent woman, yet he said that her husband should lose his life, while that husband stood there listening. He recalled how a consul had ordered his grandfather’s death, and how the grandfather’s son, not yet an adult and sent by his father as an envoy, was killed in jail. Had those men done anything like this? Had they formed a plan to demolish the state? There was then a movement for distributions of public gifts, together with a certain struggle between political factions. In those days Lentulus’s grandfather, a man of great distinction, took up weapons in pursuit of Gracchus. He even received a serious injury to keep the state’s power from being reduced in any way. His grandson, by contrast, is calling in Gauls and inciting slaves and summoning Catiline in order to overturn the state’s foundations. Cethegus is assigned the senators’ murder, Gabinius the killing of the remaining citizens, Cassius the burning of Rome, and Catiline the devastation and plundering of Italy as a whole. I advise you to be less afraid of seeming overly severe in deciding about such an immense and wicked crime. Being thought cruel to our country because we reduced the punishment is a much greater danger than being thought overly harsh to our deadliest enemies because we punished them strictly.\n\nSECTION 14\nCHAPTER 7\n\nSenators, I cannot conceal what I am hearing. People have been making remarks that have reached me. They seem concerned that I will not have sufficient support to implement today’s decisions. Everything has been anticipated, readied and arranged. My extreme care and attention have contributed, senators, but a far greater contribution has come from the people’s determination to hold on to supreme power and preserve the possessions we all share. Every social order is represented here, every sort of person and indeed every age. Crowds fill the Forum, the surrounding temples and every approach to the temple where we are meeting. Since Rome’s foundation there has never been another cause on which everybody held exactly the same view. The exceptions are those who, realizing their own destruction was coming, chose to perish with all the rest rather than by themselves.\n\nSECTION 15\nI gladly leave those people out and put them in a class apart. I would count them among our fiercest enemies, not among our bad citizens. But the others! By the immortal gods, what numbers, what commitment, what courage they bring to their common purpose of security and honor! Why speak here about Rome’s knights? They concede your order’s first place in standing and deliberation, while challenging you to match their devotion to the state. After years of disagreement with this order, they have returned to agreement and partnership. Today’s cause and today’s gathering bind you together. Keep this union, strengthened in my term as consul, permanently alive in public life, and I assure you that no further civil or internal evil will ever threaten any part of the state. Equally eager to defend it, I see the very courageous treasury tribunes assembled here. All the clerks have come as well. This happened to be a day that brought large numbers of them to the treasury, and I see them turn from waiting for lots to be drawn to the question of our common survival.\n\nSECTION 16\nThe freeborn have turned out in full, including people with very little. Can anyone fail to love these temples, the view of Rome, the freedom they possess, the very daylight and the ground their countrymen share? Can anyone fail to find these things delightful and precious?\n\nCHAPTER 8\n\nThe freedmen’s commitment deserves your attention, senators. They earned their place as citizens by their own qualities, and genuinely think of this as their homeland. Some people born here, into the very highest families, have instead treated it as the home of their enemies, not their own country. Yet why list these orders and these people? Concern for their possessions, for the state they hold in common, and above all for freedom, which is sweetest of all, has moved them to protect their country. Even slaves, as long as life in slavery is reasonably bearable, all recoil from the recklessness of these citizens. They want what we have to remain standing. Each puts as much of his good will behind its preservation as he is able and dares to give.\n\nSECTION 17\nPerhaps you are worried by something you have heard: a pimp employed by Lentulus has been dashing from shop to shop, expecting money to win over needy, uneducated people. An effort of that kind was indeed started and tried. But nobody has turned out to be so poor in circumstances or so hopeless in intentions that he does not want to keep safe the very spot where he sits to work and make his daily income. He wants his sleeping corner, his small bed and, in short, his peaceful pattern of living preserved. Far and away most shopkeepers—or, to put it more accurately, all of this class—are passionate supporters of peace. Their tools, their labor and their income rely on a city busy with people and thrive when it is quiet. Closing their shops normally costs them earnings. What would burning the shops have done?\n\nSECTION 18\nThe people of Rome, then, are not failing to provide you with support. Make sure you are not seen to let them down.\n\nCHAPTER 9\n\nYou have a consul brought safely through numerous traps and dangers, and out of death itself, not to keep himself alive but to save you. All social orders agree in their minds, intentions and words that the state must survive. Our country, which belongs to us all, is trapped by the fires and weapons of a godless conspiracy. She holds out her hands, begging you. She puts herself in your care; she puts the citizens’ lives there, the citadel and Capitol there, the household gods’ altars there, Vesta’s unending fire there, every god’s temple and sanctuary there, the city walls and buildings there. Beyond this, today it is for you to judge the fate of your own lives, the lives of your families, everyone’s possessions, your houses and your firesides.\n\nSECTION 19\nYour leader puts you first and himself out of mind. That is not an opportunity that always comes your way. Every social order, every individual, Rome’s entire population, holds the same opinion. Today, for the first time in a domestic political question, we see that happen. Think of the work it took to found our empire, the bravery that secured liberty, and the gods’ generosity that enlarged and increased our resources. One night came close to undoing it all. Your duty today is to prevent citizens ever again not just accomplishing something like that, but even imagining it. I say this not to spur you on, since you almost get ahead of me in commitment, but to show that my voice has carried out the consul’s responsibilities. It is a voice that ought to lead the state.\n\nSECTION 20\nCHAPTER 10\n\nBefore going back to the question under debate, let me speak briefly about myself. I recognize that the enemies I have acquired number as many as the conspirators. As you can see, that group is extremely large. But I regard it as shameful, powerless and contemptible. Perhaps one day someone’s criminal madness will stir that group into greater strength than your authority and the state’s. Even if that happens, senators, I will never wish I had acted or decided differently. Everyone faces death, the threat they may be making against me. Nobody, though, has attained the degree of praise for his life that you have conferred on mine by your decrees. In other cases the thanksgiving you have decreed has always been for good service to the state. Only in mine has it been for keeping the state in existence.\n\nSECTION 21\nGive Scipio his fame: his strategy and bravery forced Hannibal out of Italy and back to Africa. Give the other Africanus his outstanding praise: he destroyed the empire’s two most hostile cities, Carthage and Numantia. Recognize Paulus as exceptional: Perseus, once a king of the highest power and birth, added distinction to his chariot. Let Marius’s fame last forever: he twice released Italy from siege and fear of enslavement. Rank Pompey higher than everyone: his accomplishments and courage have the same geographical reach and boundaries as the path of the sun. Surely there is space for some glory of my own among all those honors. Unless, of course, giving us new provinces to travel out to matters more than ensuring that even men abroad have a home they can come back to victorious.\n\nSECTION 22\nForeign success does have one advantage over success at home. Defeated foreigners become subjects, or, when accepted as friends, feel indebted to the kindness shown them. With citizens it is different. Once some madness has corrupted them into enemies of their country, stopping their attack on the state does not make it possible either to hold them down with force or win them over with favors. That is why I can see a never-ending struggle with corrupt fellow citizens ahead of me. But I am sure I can readily fend it off from myself and my family. I have your support and that of every good person, and there is the memory of these terrible dangers. That memory will stay forever, not just among the people who were rescued, but in the conversation and thought of every nation. No power, surely, can ever be found great enough to smash and weaken your alliance with the knights and the strong agreement of all the good people.\n\nSECTION 23\nCHAPTER 11\n\nWhat, then, do I ask in return? For the military command, troops and province that I chose not to take; for the triumph and other public distinctions I refused in order to guard Rome and protect you; for the relationships with provincial clients and hosts, which I nevertheless use my influence at Rome to preserve, working as hard at maintaining them as at acquiring them—for all of this, for my exceptional commitment to you and for my efforts, which you can see, to preserve the state, I ask only that you remember this hour and the whole period of my consulship. While that stays in your minds, I will think of myself as sheltered behind the strongest possible wall. Should violent criminals prove my hope mistaken and overpower it, I put my little boy in your care. His protection, not just from danger but in his social standing, will surely be sufficient if you remember whose son he is: the son of the man who bore all the risk himself and preserved everything here.\n\nSECTION 24\nSo deliberate as carefully as you have begun, and with courage. At stake are your ultimate safety and Rome’s, your wives and children, altars and firesides, sanctuaries and temples, all the roofs and dwellings in the city, our power and freedom, Italy’s survival and the entire state. Your consul is a man who will follow your decrees without hesitation. Throughout his remaining life he can defend your decisions and personally make sure they are carried out.","download_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/cicero-catiline/translations/trn_cicero_catiline_plain.txt"}],"retex_markdown_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/cicero-catiline/retex.md"}}