Against Catiline

1 CHAPTER 1

Catiline, 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?

2 What 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.

3 Publius 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.

4 CHAPTER 2

The 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.

5 A 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.

6 While 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.

Chapter 3

What 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.

7 Recall 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!

8 And 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.

Chapter 4

Come, 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.

9 Immortal 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.

10 Your 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.

Chapter 5

Go 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.

11 Great 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.

12 Now 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.

Chapter 6

What now, Catiline?

13 Will 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?

14 And 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.

15 Can 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.

16 How 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.

Chapter 7

But 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?

17 Were 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?

18 She 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.”

19 CHAPTER 8

If 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?

20 So, 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.

“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?

21 Had 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.

22 CHAPTER 9

But 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.

23 Leave, 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.

24 Yet 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?

25 CHAPTER 10

At 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.

26 There, 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.

27 This 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.

Chapter 11

Now, 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?

28 “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!

29 “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?”

Chapter 12

To 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.

30 There 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.

31 CHAPTER 13

For 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.

32 Let 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.

33 Go, 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.

1 CHAPTER 1

At 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.

SECTION 2

He 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.

3 CHAPTER 2

Yet 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.

SECTION 4

But 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!

5 CHAPTER 3

And 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.

SECTION 6

I 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.

Chapter 4

I 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.

SECTION 7

How 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?

SECTION 8

And 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.

9 CHAPTER 5

To 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.

SECTION 10

If 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.

SECTION 11

I 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.

12 CHAPTER 6

Yet 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.

SECTION 13

Then 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.

SECTION 14

Was 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!

Chapter 7

What 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!

SECTION 15

It 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?

SECTION 16

And 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.

17 CHAPTER 8

But 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.

SECTION 18

One 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.

19 CHAPTER 9

The 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?

SECTION 20

The 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.

21 CHAPTER 10

The 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.

SECTION 22

The 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.

SECTION 23

In 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!

24 CHAPTER 11

What 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.

SECTION 25

But 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?

26 CHAPTER 12

Since 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.

SECTION 27

Now 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.

28 CHAPTER 13

And 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.

SECTION 29

These 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.

1 CHAPTER 1

Citizens, 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.

2 The 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.

3 Since 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.

First, 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.

Chapter 2

For 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.

4 When 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.

5 Yesterday, 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.

6 Meanwhile, 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.

Chapter 3

Flaccus 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.

7 The 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.

8 At 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.

Chapter 4

I 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.

9 Next 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.

10 They 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.

Chapter 5

To 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.”

11 His 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.

12 Volturcius 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.

13 To 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.

Chapter 6

With 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.

14 First 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.

15 A 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.

16 CHAPTER 7

Now, 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.

17 Had 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.

18 CHAPTER 8

Yet 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.

19 You 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.

20 Following 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.

21 CHAPTER 9

Who 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.

22 How 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?

23 CHAPTER 10

Citizens, 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.

24 Think 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.

25 [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.

26 CHAPTER 11

In 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.

27 CHAPTER 12

My 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.

28 My 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.

29 I 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.

1 CHAPTER 1

I 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.

SECTION 2

I 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?

3 CHAPTER 2

Therefore, 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.

SECTION 4

Therefore, 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.

5 CHAPTER 3

Informers 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.

SECTION 6

Yet 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.

7 CHAPTER 4

So 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.

SECTION 8

Still, 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.

9 CHAPTER 5

Now, 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.

SECTION 10

I 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.

11 CHAPTER 6

Therefore, 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.

SECTION 12

When 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.

SECTION 13

Unless, 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.

14 CHAPTER 7

But 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.

SECTION 15

These 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.

SECTION 16

The 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?

Chapter 8

It 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.

17 So 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?

18 Since 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.

Chapter 9

You 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.

19 You 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.

20 CHAPTER 10

Now, 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.

21 Let 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.

22 Yet 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.

23 CHAPTER 11

Since 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.

24 Therefore, 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.