Against Catiline

1 CHAPTER 1

How much longer will you abuse our patience, Catiline? How long will this madness of yours keep making fools of us? How far will your reckless daring go? Has none of this affected you: the night guard on the Palatine, the watches throughout the city, the people’s fear, the gathering of all decent citizens, this heavily guarded place where the Senate meets, the faces and expressions of these men? Do you not realize that your plans are exposed? Do you not see that everyone’s knowledge has already trapped your conspiracy? Which of us do you think does not know what you did last night and the night before, where you were, whom you called together, and what plan you adopted?

2 What times we live in! What standards of behavior! The Senate knows all this. The consul sees it. Yet this man is still alive. Alive? He even comes into the Senate. He takes part in public decisions. His eyes pick out and mark each one of us for murder. And we, brave men that we are, think we are doing enough for our country if we keep out of the way of his madness and his weapons. A consul’s order should have sent you to your death long ago, Catiline. The destruction you have long been planning for all of us should have fallen on you.

3 Publius Scipio, a most distinguished man and the chief priest, killed Tiberius Gracchus as a private citizen. Gracchus was only shaking the foundations of the state to a limited degree. Are we, the consuls, to put up with Catiline, who wants to devastate the world with slaughter and fire? I pass over the much older example of Gaius Servilius Ahala, who killed Spurius Maelius with his own hand for trying to bring about a revolution. Our country once had that courage. It did. Brave men would punish a dangerous citizen more harshly than the bitterest foreign enemy. We have a Senate decree against you, Catiline, forceful and serious. The state does not lack the judgment or authority of this body. We are failing it—we, the consuls, I say so openly.

4 CHAPTER 2

The Senate once decreed that the consul Lucius Opimius should see that the state suffered no harm. Not a single night passed. Gaius Gracchus was killed on suspicion of stirring up unrest, despite his famous father, grandfather, and ancestors. Marcus Fulvius, a former consul, was killed along with his children. A similar Senate decree put the state in the hands of the consuls Gaius Marius and Lucius Valerius. Did Lucius Saturninus, the people’s tribune, and Gaius Servilius, the praetor, then wait even a day for death and the state’s punishment? But we have let the sharp edge of the Senate’s authority grow blunt for twenty days now. We have a decree of this kind, but it is shut away among the records, like a sword put back in its sheath. Under that decree, Catiline, you should have been killed at once. You live, and you live not to give up your reckless purpose but to strengthen it. Senators, I want to be merciful. I want to avoid seeming careless when our country faces such danger. But I already condemn myself for inaction and worthlessness.

5 A camp has been set up in Italy against the Roman people, at the approaches to Etruria. The number of enemies grows every day. Yet you see the commander of that camp, the leader of those enemies, inside our walls—inside the Senate itself. Every day he works to destroy the state from within. If I now ordered your arrest and execution, Catiline, I suppose I would have to fear that someone might call me too cruel, rather than that all decent citizens would say I had acted too late! Still, I have a particular reason for not yet bringing myself to do what should have been done long ago. You will be killed only when no one can be found so wicked, so ruined, so much like you, that he will not admit it was justified.

6 As long as anyone dares to defend you, you will live. And you will live as you do now, surrounded by the many strong guards I have posted, so you cannot make a move against the state. Many people’s eyes and ears will also watch and track you without your knowing it, just as they have done so far.

Chapter 3

What more can you be waiting for, Catiline? The darkness of night cannot hide your criminal meetings. The walls of a private house cannot hold in the words of your conspiracy. Everything comes to light. Everything breaks out into the open. Change your thinking now. Believe me: forget murder and arson. You are caught on every side. All your plans are clearer to us than daylight. You can now go over them with me.

7 Do you remember what I said in the Senate on October 21? I said that Gaius Manlius, the follower and agent of your recklessness, would take up arms on a particular day, October 27. Was I wrong, Catiline? Not just about an event so serious, so terrible, so hard to believe, but, far more surprisingly, about the day? I also said in the Senate that you had fixed October 28 for the murder of the leading supporters of the state. That was when many leading citizens left Rome, less to save themselves than to block your plans. Can you deny that on that very day my guards and my careful watch kept you hemmed in and unable to act against the state? You were saying that, though the others had left, you were still content to murder those of us who had stayed.

8 And what about Praeneste? You were sure you would seize it in a night attack on November 1 itself. Did you notice that I had ordered that colony to be protected by my guards, sentries, and night watches? You do nothing, attempt nothing, think of nothing that I do not hear about and also see and fully understand.

Chapter 4

Go back with me now over the night before last. You will soon see that I watch far more closely to keep the state safe than you do to destroy it. I say that the night before last you went to the scythe-makers’ district—I will be quite specific—to the house of Marcus Laeca. Several partners in the same madness and crime came there too. Do you dare deny it? Why are you silent? If you deny it, I will prove it. I can see men here in the Senate who were there with you.

9 Immortal gods! Where on earth are we? What kind of state do we have? What city are we living in? Here, here among us, senators, in this most sacred and respected council in the world, are men who plan the death of us all. They plan the destruction of this city and, beyond it, the whole world. I, the consul, see these men and ask their opinions on public business. They should be cut down with swords, yet I have not even wounded them with words! So you were at Laeca’s house that night, Catiline. You divided up the regions of Italy. You decided where each man was to go. You chose whom to leave in Rome and whom to take with you. You assigned districts of the city to be burned. You confirmed that you yourself would now leave. You said there was still one small delay: I was alive. Two Roman knights were found to free you from that worry. They promised to kill me in my own bed that very night, shortly before dawn.

10 I learned all this almost before your meeting had broken up. I strengthened and secured my house with more guards. I shut out the men you had sent to greet me in the morning. The men who came were the very ones I had already told many of our most important citizens would come at that time.

Chapter 5

That being so, Catiline, carry on as you began. Get out of the city at last. The gates are open. Go. That camp of Manlius’s has been waiting far too long for you, its commander. Take all your men with you too. If not all, take as many as you can. Clean the city out. You will free me from a great fear, as long as a wall stands between you and me. You cannot stay among us any longer. I will not bear it. I will not put up with it. I will not allow it.

11 We owe great thanks to the immortal gods, and to Jupiter the Upholder himself, this city’s oldest guardian. We have escaped so many times from this foul, terrifying threat to our country. The survival of the state must not keep depending on one man’s life. While you were plotting against me as consul-elect, Catiline, I protected myself through my own vigilance, not with public guards. At the last consular elections, you wanted to kill me, the consul, and your rivals on the Field of Mars. I stopped your criminal attempts with the help and forces of my friends, without causing any public alarm. In short, whenever you attacked me, I resisted you with my own resources. Yet I could see that my destruction would bring a great disaster on the state as well.

12 Now you openly attack the whole state. You are calling down destruction and devastation on the temples of the immortal gods, the city’s homes, the lives of all its citizens, and all of Italy. So I will take a course that is less harsh but more useful for everyone’s safety. I do not yet dare take the first and best course, the one that belongs to the authority I hold and our ancestors’ practice. If I order you killed, the rest of the conspirators will remain in the state. But if you leave, as I have long been urging you to do, the great, dangerous cesspool your followers make in the state will be drained out of the city.

Chapter 6

What is it, Catiline?

13 Are you hesitating to do on my orders what you were already doing on your own? The consul orders an enemy to leave the city. Are you asking me whether I mean exile? I am not ordering it. But if you ask my advice, I recommend it. What can still give you any pleasure in this city, Catiline? Outside your conspiracy of ruined men, everyone here fears you and everyone hates you. What mark of shame in family life has not been branded on your life? What disgrace in private affairs does not cling to your reputation? What lust has ever been absent from your eyes, what crime from your hands, what shameful act from your whole body? When you trapped a young man with the lures of corruption, was there ever one for whom you did not hold up a sword to guide him into violence or a torch to guide him into lust?

14 And what about this? Recently, when you had made room for a new marriage by the death of your previous wife, did you not add another unbelievable crime to that crime? I pass over it and am quite willing to leave it unspoken. Otherwise it would seem that a crime of such monstrous scale could either have happened in this country or have gone unpunished. I pass over the collapse of your finances. You will feel its full weight hanging over you on the next Ides. I turn instead to things that concern not the personal disgrace of your vices, not your private troubles and shame, but the survival of the state and the lives and safety of us all.

15 Can this daylight, Catiline, or the air you breathe under this sky give you any pleasure? You know that every man here knows what you did on the day before January 1, in the consulship of Lepidus and Tullus. You stood in the assembly ground with a weapon. You had put together a band to kill the consuls and the leading citizens. Neither a change of mind nor any fear on your part blocked your criminal madness. It was the good fortune of the Roman people. But I leave that aside. Your later acts have not been hidden or few. How many times have you tried to kill me as consul-elect, and then as consul! How many attacks you aimed at me seemed impossible to dodge! Yet I escaped by a slight movement, a turn of the body, as they say. You do nothing. You get nowhere. Yet you never stop trying and wanting to do it.

16 How many times has that dagger been forced from your hands! How many times has some accident made it slip and fall out! I do not know what rites you have used to consecrate and dedicate it, making you think you must plant it in a consul’s body.

Chapter 7

But what kind of life are you living now? I will speak to you now in a way that seems prompted not by the hatred you deserve, but by pity, which you do not deserve at all. You came into the Senate a short while ago. Out of this great crowd, out of all your friends and close associates, who greeted you? Nothing like this has happened to anyone in living memory. Do you wait for insults spoken aloud when the silence has already delivered the harshest judgment against you? And what about the benches emptied at your approach? All the former consuls, men you had marked out for murder so often, left that part of the benches bare and empty as soon as you sat down. How do you think you should bear that?

17 I swear by Hercules, if my slaves feared me the way all your fellow citizens fear you, I would think I had to leave my house. Do you not think you have to leave the city? If I saw that my fellow citizens deeply suspected and hated me without cause, I would rather be out of their sight than face everyone’s hostile looks. But you know from your own crimes that everyone’s hatred is justified and has long been deserved. How can you hesitate to get away from the sight and company of people whose minds and feelings you hurt? If your parents feared and hated you, and you could not win them over by any means, I think you would go somewhere out of their sight. Now your country, the common parent of us all, hates and fears you. It has long judged that you think of nothing but murdering it, your own parent. Will you show no respect for its authority, accept no judgment from it, feel no fear of its power?

18 This is how your country deals with you, Catiline. In a way, its silence speaks: “For several years now, no crime has happened except through you, no disgraceful act without you. You alone have been free to kill many citizens, to harass and rob our allies, and go unpunished. You have had the power not only to disregard laws and criminal courts, but to overturn and break them down. Those earlier acts should not have been tolerated, but I put up with them as best I could. Now my whole being is gripped by fear because of you alone. At every sound, it is Catiline I fear. No plan against me seems possible that would be out of keeping with your criminal nature. This cannot be tolerated. So go away and free me from this fear. If it is justified, go so that I am not destroyed. If it is groundless, go so that I can finally stop being afraid.”

19 CHAPTER 8

If your country spoke to you as I have described, should it not get what it asks, even if it cannot use force? And what about your offer to place yourself under supervision? To avoid suspicion, you said you wanted to live with Manius Lepidus. When he would not take you in, you even dared to come to me and ask me to keep you under guard in my own house. I too gave you my answer: I could not possibly be safe inside the same house as you, since I was in great danger even living inside the same city walls. Then you went to the praetor Quintus Metellus. He turned you down, so you moved in with your friend Marcus Metellus, that excellent man. Clearly, you thought he would be extremely careful in guarding you, extremely sharp in suspecting you, and extremely brave in punishing you. But how far from prison and chains should a man be who has already judged himself fit to be kept under guard?

20 That being so, Catiline, why hesitate? If you cannot calmly face death, go away to some other country. You have snatched this life of yours from the many punishments you justly owe. Why not hand it over to exile and loneliness?

“Put it to the Senate,” you say. That is your demand. You say you will obey if this body passes a decree declaring that it wants you to go into exile. I will not put it to a vote; that would go against my principles. Still, I will make you understand what these men think of you. Leave the city, Catiline. Free the state from fear. Go into exile, if that is the word you are waiting for. Well? Are you paying attention? Do you notice their silence? They let this happen. They say nothing. Why wait for them to speak with authority when their silence makes their wishes plain?

21 If I had said the same thing to this excellent young man Publius Sestius, or to that very brave man Marcus Marcellus, the Senate would by now have laid violent hands on me, the consul, right here in this temple. And it would have been fully justified. But in your case, Catiline, by keeping still they approve. By letting this happen they pass judgment. By saying nothing they shout. And it is not just these men, whose authority you of course value, though you think their lives are worth nothing. It is also those Roman knights, those honorable and excellent men, and the other courageous citizens standing around the Senate. You could see their numbers, recognize their feelings, and hear their voices a little while ago. For a long time now I have barely kept their hands and weapons off you. Yet I will easily persuade these same men to escort you all the way to the gates as you leave the places you have so long been trying to destroy.

22 CHAPTER 9

But what am I saying? Could anything break you? Could you ever put yourself right? Could you consider fleeing, or think about exile? I wish the immortal gods would put that thought into your head! Yet I can see the storm of resentment that threatens me if my words frighten you into deciding to go into exile. Perhaps it will not come now, while the memory of your crimes is fresh. But it will come in the future. Still, it is worth the price, provided the disaster falls on you alone and is kept apart from danger to our country. But we cannot expect you to be troubled by your vices, to fear the penalties of the law, or to give way before the country’s crisis. You are not the sort of man, Catiline, whom shame could turn back from disgrace, fear from danger, or reason from madness.

23 So leave, as I have said so often. If you want to stir up hatred against me, whom you call your enemy, go straight into exile. If you do that, I will hardly be able to bear people’s talk. If you go into exile on the consul’s orders, I will hardly stand up under the weight of their hatred. But if you would rather add to the praise and glory I receive, leave with your savage band of criminals. Go to Manlius. Rouse the ruined citizens. Separate yourself from the decent ones. Make war on your country. Revel in your godless banditry. Then it will be clear that I did not drive you out to live among strangers, but invited you to join your own people.

24 But why should I invite you? I already know you have sent armed men ahead to wait for you at Forum Aurelium. I know you have agreed and fixed a day with Manlius. I know you have even sent ahead that silver eagle. I am sure it will bring destruction and death to you and all your followers. You set up a criminal shrine to it in your own house. Could you stay away from it any longer? You used to worship it before setting out to murder. Often you have left its altars to use that godless right hand to kill citizens.

25 CHAPTER 10

At last you will go where your wild, uncontrolled desire has long been dragging you. This brings you no pain, but an almost unbelievable pleasure. Nature gave you birth for this madness. Your own will trained you for it. Fortune kept you alive for it. You have never wanted peace, or even any war that was not criminal. You have found a band of wicked men, made up of ruined people who have lost all their resources and even all hope.

26 What delight you will enjoy there! How you will jump for joy! How wildly you will revel in pleasure, when among so many of your followers you neither hear nor see a single decent man! Those famous hardships of yours were practice for this way of life. You lay on the ground not only to wait for a chance at illicit sex, but to carry out a crime. You stayed awake not only to take advantage of sleeping husbands, but to attack the property of peaceful people. Now you have somewhere to show off that famous ability of yours to endure hunger, cold, and the lack of everything. You will soon find that those things have worn you out.

27 I achieved this much when I kept you out of the consulship: you could attack the state as an exile rather than torment it as consul. And the criminal enterprise you had undertaken could be called banditry rather than war.

Chapter 11

Now, senators, I want to head off a complaint my country might make against me, one that would almost be justified, and ask to be spared it. Please listen carefully to what I say and fix it deep in your hearts and minds. Suppose my country, which I love far more than my own life, suppose all Italy, suppose the whole state were to speak to me: “Marcus Tullius, what are you doing? You have found this man to be an enemy. You see that he will lead a war. You know the enemy camp is waiting for him as its commander. Will you let him leave, the man behind these crimes, the leader of the conspiracy, the man who calls out slaves and ruined citizens? It will seem that you have not let him out of the city, but let him loose against it. Will you not order him put in chains, dragged off to death, put to death as the ultimate punishment? What, after all, stops you? Our ancestors’ practice?

28 “But very often in our country even private citizens have put dangerous citizens to death. Or is it the laws passed about punishing Roman citizens? But in this city those who have broken with the state have never kept their rights as citizens. Or do you fear the hatred of future generations? What a fine way to repay the Roman people! You were a man known through your own achievements, with no ancestral standing to recommend you. They took you through every rank of public office and raised you to the highest authority so early in life. And now, because you fear hatred or some danger, you neglect the safety of your fellow citizens!

29 “But if there is any reason to fear hatred, you should not fear the hatred that comes from firmness and courage more than the hatred that comes from inaction and worthlessness. When Italy is devastated by war, when cities are ravaged and houses burn, do you think you will not burn too, in a fire of hatred?”

Chapter 12

I will give a brief answer to these deeply respected words of my country and to the thoughts of those who feel the same way. Senators, if I thought the best thing to do was to put Catiline to death, I would not have given that gladiator a single hour of life. Great men and famous citizens shed the blood of Saturninus, the Gracchi, Flaccus, and many others before them. They did not stain themselves by it; they even gained honor. Surely, then, I had no need to fear that killing this murderer of his fellow citizens would bring hatred on me in the future. Even if that hatred were a very real threat to me, I have always believed that hatred earned by courage is glory, not hatred.

30 Still, there are some in this body who either do not see the dangers ahead or pretend not to see what they do see. Their mild opinions have fed Catiline’s hopes. By refusing to believe in the conspiracy as it took shape, they made it stronger. Their influence would lead many people, not just the wicked but also the uninformed, to say I had acted cruelly and like a king if I had punished him. As things stand, I know that if he reaches Manlius’s camp, where he is heading, no one will be so stupid as not to see that a conspiracy has been formed, or so wicked as not to admit it. But I also know that killing this one man could hold back this plague on our country for a short time, not put it down forever. If he throws himself out, takes his men with him, and gathers the other ruined wrecks of men from everywhere to that same place, it will wipe out and destroy not just this fully grown plague on the state, but also the root and seed of all our troubles.

31 CHAPTER 13

Senators, we have lived with the dangers and plots of this conspiracy for a long time. But somehow all these crimes, all this long-standing madness and recklessness, have reached their full growth and burst out during my consulship. If just this one man is removed from such a large band of robbers, we may seem free of worry and fear for a short time. But the danger will remain, shut deep inside the veins and vital organs of the state. People who are seriously ill and tossed about by burning fever often seem to get relief at first if they drink cold water. Then they suffer far more severely and violently. In the same way, the disease in our country will get temporary relief from this man’s punishment, then become much worse while the others stay alive.

32 So let the wicked withdraw. Let them separate themselves from the decent people and gather in one place. As I have so often said, let a wall stand between them and us. Let them stop plotting against the consul in his own house, crowding around the city praetor’s tribunal, surrounding the Senate house with swords, and getting fire-darts and torches ready to burn the city. Let each man’s attitude toward the state be written on his forehead. Senators, I promise you this: we consuls will show such vigilance, you such authority, the Roman knights such courage, and all decent citizens such unity that, once Catiline has left, you will see everything exposed, brought to light, crushed, and punished.

33 With these omens, Catiline, go to your godless, criminal war. Let it bring complete safety to the state, disaster and destruction to you, and ruin to those who have joined you in every crime and in the murder of their country. And you, Jupiter, whom Romulus established under the same divine signs as this city, whom we rightly call the Upholder of this city and its rule: you will keep this man and his partners away from your own and the other temples, from the city’s houses and walls, and from the lives and property of all its citizens. These enemies of decent people, these foes of their country, these robbers of Italy are joined together in a pact of crime and a godless alliance. You will punish them forever, in life and in death.

1 CHAPTER 1

At last, citizens, Lucius Catiline is outside Rome. Call it driving him out, letting him go, or sending him on his way with a speech as he left of his own accord. This is the man whose reckless madness breathed crime, whose wicked schemes aimed to destroy his country, whose threats against you and the city were threats of fire and the sword. He has gone away, made his exit, escaped, burst out. That monster, that unnatural creature, will no longer prepare destruction for the city walls from a position inside them. There is no disputing that we have defeated him, the sole commander of this internal war. No longer will his dagger move among our ribs. We will not have to fear him at elections on the Campus, in the Forum, in the Senate House, or within our own homes. Forcing him out of Rome dislodged him from his position. We can now fight a declared war openly against an enemy, without obstruction. By driving him from secret plots into open banditry, we have certainly ruined the man and won a great victory.

2 Imagine his disappointment. He did not leave with blood on his blade, as he had intended. We were alive when he went. His hands had been forced to let go of their weapon; the citizens were safe and Rome was still standing. How completely do you think that grief has broken him? Now he is down, citizens, flat on the ground, conscious of being beaten and discarded. Surely he keeps looking back toward the city, mourning the prey taken out of his mouth. Rome, meanwhile, seems happy to me: it has thrown up this terrible pestilence and flung it away.

3 CHAPTER 2

Perhaps someone, being the sort of person everyone ought to be, strongly condemns me on the very point over which my speech celebrates a triumph. Why did I let so dangerous an enemy leave instead of arresting him? Citizens, the fault lies in the circumstances, not in me. Long ago Lucius Catiline should have been executed, receiving the heaviest penalty. Our ancestors’ practice, the strictness of our government and the state’s own needs required that action from me. But consider how many people would not have believed my reports. How many were too foolish to give the danger a thought? How many would even defend him? How many were wicked enough to support him? Had I thought that getting rid of him would remove every danger from you, I would long ago have done it, risking not just public hatred against me but my very life.

4 But even you were not all convinced of the facts yet. I realized that executing him, deserved though it was, would bring such hostility on me that I could not go after his accomplices. So I brought things to the point where you could see the enemy clearly and fight him openly. You can judge how little I think we should fear that enemy outside the city from this: I am actually unhappy that he left with so small a following. If only he had taken every one of his forces! He took Tongilius, whom he began to love when the boy still wore the purple-bordered toga. He took Publicius and Minucius, whose tavern debts could not cause any disturbance in public life. But look at the men he left behind! Look at their debts, their strength and their high birth!

5 CHAPTER 3

I have little respect for his army when I compare it with the Gallic legions, the men Quintus Metellus has raised in Picenum and the Gallic district, and the forces we are preparing daily. His collection consists of desperate old men, extravagant country people, rural bankrupts, and men who chose to abandon their court appearances rather than abandon his camp. They will collapse if I show them not just our army’s battle line but even a praetor’s order. I wish he had taken the soldiers of his I see flitting around the Forum, standing outside the Senate House and even coming into the Senate: men glistening with perfume and shining in purple. If they remain here, remember that we have more to fear from these deserters from his army than from the army itself. What makes them still more frightening is that they know I understand their intentions and are not disturbed by it.

6 I know who has been assigned Apulia, who is responsible for Etruria, who for Picenum and who for the Gallic district. I know who has asked to handle the plots for murder and arson within Rome. They are aware that all the decisions taken that earlier night have reached me. Yesterday I exposed them in the Senate. Catiline himself was frightened into flight. What are these men waiting for? They are seriously mistaken if they expect my previous mildness to last forever.

Chapter 4

My purpose in waiting has now been achieved: all of you can see plainly that a conspiracy against the state has been formed. Unless someone really thinks that men like Catiline do not share Catiline’s views! Gentleness has no place now. The facts themselves call for strict action. I will allow one thing even at this stage: let them leave, let them go. They should not let poor Catiline pine away for want of their company. I can show them the road: he took the Aurelian Way. If they hurry, they can catch him by evening.

7 How fortunate the state would be if it could throw out this sewage of the city! By Hercules, removing Catiline alone seems to have relieved and revived it. Can anyone invent or imagine a form of evil or crime that he has not thought of? Search all Italy. What poisoner, gladiator, robber, hired killer, killer of a parent, forger of wills, swindler, glutton, spendthrift or adulterer is there who would not admit to having lived on the closest terms with Catiline? What disreputable woman? What corrupter of the young? What corrupt or hopeless person? Which murder in recent years took place without him? Which wicked sexual outrage did not come about through him?

8 Has anyone ever had such power to lure young people? He himself pursued some in the most shameful way. For others he served their desires in the most disgraceful way. To some he promised sexual satisfaction, to others their parents’ deaths. He offered not just encouragement but practical help. And look how suddenly he had gathered a huge crowd of corrupt people, from the countryside as well as Rome! There was nobody crushed by debt, not only here but in any corner of Italy, whom he did not recruit into this unbelievable alliance of crime.

9 CHAPTER 5

To see the range of his interests in quite different walks of life, consider this. Every man in a gladiator school with a little extra willingness to attempt a crime admits to being Catiline’s intimate friend. Every especially worthless, irresponsible stage performer remembers being almost his companion. Yet this same man, trained by long practice in sexual abuse and crime to endure cold, lack of food, thirst and sleeplessness, was praised as courageous by these people. He spent the resources needed for hard work and the equipment of courage on lust and recklessness instead.

10 If his friends follow him, if these disgraceful crowds of desperate men leave Rome, how happy we will be! How lucky the state, and how distinguished the reputation of my consulship! Their appetites have now passed any ordinary limits; their recklessness is beyond what human beings can tolerate. Murder, arson and plunder are all they think about. They have squandered their inheritances and mortgaged their possessions. They ran out of resources long ago, and recently they began running out of credit. Their appetite, though, remains as great as when they had plenty. If drink and gambling led them to seek only parties and prostitutes, they would be beyond hope, but we could still tolerate them. Who can tolerate what they are doing instead? Useless men plot against men of courage; utter fools against the wisest; drunks against the sober; sleepers against those keeping watch. They stretch out at banquets, clasp shameless women, grow sluggish with wine, stuff themselves with food, put wreaths on their heads, smear themselves with perfume and wear themselves out with sexual excess. Then they belch out talk of killing good citizens and setting the city ablaze.

11 I am sure some doom hangs over them. The penalty their corruption, worthlessness, crime and lust have long deserved is either upon them already or certainly close at hand. Since my consulship cannot cure them, if it removes them instead it will prolong the state’s life not by some brief interval but by many centuries. We have no nation to dread, no king able to wage war against Rome’s people. One man’s courage has brought peace abroad, both on land and at sea. What remains is a war at home. The plots are inside, the danger is shut up inside, the enemy is inside. We must fight extravagance, madness and crime. Citizens, I declare myself the commander in that war. I accept the hostility of corrupt men. Wherever any cure is possible, I will find one by whatever means I can. Wherever cutting away is necessary, I will not let the disease remain to destroy the community. So they must leave or remain quiet. If they insist on remaining in Rome with their intentions unchanged, they can expect what they deserve.

12 CHAPTER 6

But people still say, citizens, that I expelled Catiline. Were a spoken word enough to do that, I would expel the people making that claim. He must be such a frightened man, or perhaps such an unusually obedient one: a consul’s voice was more than he could take! Apparently being ordered into exile was enough to make him comply. Here is what actually happened. Yesterday I narrowly escaped assassination in my house. I called the senators together at the temple of Jupiter the Upholder and told them everything. When Catiline arrived, did a senator address him? Did anyone offer a greeting? Did anyone even give him the look one gives a bad citizen, rather than the bitterest of enemies? The most prominent members of the order went further: they vacated the benches he had approached, leaving that section completely deserted.

13 At that point I—the fierce consul whose bare words send citizens into exile—put a question to Catiline. Had he been at Marcus Laeca’s during the meeting held that night, or had he not? Even that supremely reckless man was convicted by his own conscience. His initial response was silence. So I brought the other facts into the open. I explained his whereabouts, his actions during that night and his arrangements for the next, showing how the entire campaign had been planned. He could not answer. Caught out, he hesitated. Why, I asked, was he delaying the departure he had been planning for so long? I knew what had gone ahead of him: the weapons, the axes and rods, the trumpets, the army’s standards, and the silver eagle for which he had even provided a sanctuary at home.

14 Was I driving into exile a man I could see had already started a war? Presumably that centurion Manlius, with his camp in the territory of Faesulae, declared war against Rome on his own account! Presumably the camp is not waiting for Catiline to lead it! Presumably Catiline is now heading for Massilia, as they say, because he has been forced into exile, and not for that camp!

Chapter 7

What a miserable position it is, not just to run the state but even to keep it alive! Suppose my planning, work and personal risks have boxed Lucius Catiline in and weakened him. Suppose he suddenly takes fright, changes his mind, deserts his followers, drops the plan for war and turns away from this path of crime and fighting toward flight and exile. Will people say I stripped him of the weapons of his recklessness? That my vigilance stunned and terrified him? That I drove him from his hopes and his attempt? No: they will say an innocent man, never convicted, was driven into exile by a consul’s threats and force. And if he does it, some will want him thought unfortunate, not wicked, and me a most brutal tyrant, not an exceptionally watchful consul!

15 Citizens, I consider it worth enduring this storm of false and unfair hatred, provided it keeps the danger of this terrible, wicked war away from you. Let people say I expelled him, so long as he actually goes into exile. But believe me: that is not where he will go. I will never ask the immortal gods to relieve the hostility toward me by letting you hear that Catiline commands a hostile army and is moving about under arms. Still, you will hear it within three days. What frightens me much more is the possibility that one day people will hate me for letting him go rather than for driving him out. Yet if people call his departure an expulsion now, imagine what those same people would say if he had been killed!

16 In any case, the people repeatedly announcing his journey to Massilia fear that journey more than they resent it. Their compassion never reaches the point of preferring him to join the Massilians instead of Manlius. And by Hercules, Catiline himself would choose death while committing banditry over an exile’s continued life, even if this course had never previously entered his mind. As matters stand, nothing has happened against his wishes or his calculations except this: he went out of Rome and left us living. Rather than grieve about his exile, then, let us hope for it.

17 CHAPTER 8

Why are we spending so much time on a single enemy? He already acknowledges that he is one, and I am not afraid of him now that a wall separates us, as I always wished. Why say nothing of the men who hide their intentions, stay in Rome and live among us? If any possible way exists, I am more interested in curing these men for their own sake and reconciling them to the state than in punishing them. If they are finally willing to listen, I cannot see why that should be impossible. Citizens, I will explain what sorts of people make up those forces. Then I will offer each group whatever remedy I can through my advice and my speech.

18 One group owes a great deal but owns even more, and loves its property too much to settle its debts. These people look thoroughly respectable: after all, they are wealthy. But their purpose and their cause are utterly shameless. Are you to possess land, buildings, silver, slaves and everything else in abundance, yet hesitate to reduce your holdings and restore your credit? What are you waiting for? War? Do you imagine that when everything is being laid waste, your property will somehow remain untouchable? Or are you waiting for debts to be written off? Anyone expecting that from Catiline is wrong. Through my help new accounts will indeed be produced, but they will be records of auction sales! Property owners like these have no other way of saving themselves. If they had done this earlier, instead of the utter foolishness of pitting their estates’ income against the interest they owed, they would be wealthier and better citizens for us to deal with. Still, this is the group I think we need fear least. We can either change their minds, or, if they stick to their views, I think they are likelier to offer prayers against the state than take up weapons against it.

19 CHAPTER 9

The second group, despite being weighed down by debt, looks forward to holding absolute power. They want control of affairs. They believe upheaval will bring them the offices they have no hope of attaining while public life is peaceful. They need the same warning as everybody else: give up any expectation of succeeding. First, I myself am awake, on the spot and planning for the public good. Next, good citizens have great courage; the social orders are strongly united; we have an enormous number of supporters and substantial forces of soldiers besides. Finally, the gods will be here to help this unbeaten people, its glorious empire and its beautiful city against crime on such a scale. But suppose these men did obtain what they want with such mad eagerness. Surrounded by the city’s ashes and citizens’ blood, do they expect to become consuls or dictators or even kings? That is what their criminal, wicked minds long for. Can they not see that, even if they obtain it, they will necessarily have to hand it over to some runaway slave or gladiator?

20 The third group is getting old, but military training still keeps it strong. Manlius, whom Catiline is now joining, belongs to this class. These are men from Sulla’s colonies. I recognize that the colonies taken as a whole consist of excellent citizens and extremely courageous men. But these particular settlers showed off their sudden, unexpected wealth with extravagant and arrogant spending. They built as though they were rich, took pleasure in choice estates, large slave households and elaborate dinners, and fell so deeply into debt that only bringing Sulla up from the dead could save them. They have also led some poor, needy country people to hope for a return to the plundering of those earlier days. I put both sorts in the same class of looters and robbers. My warning is to stop this madness and stop thinking of dictatorships and lists of people marked for death. The memory of that period’s suffering has been burned so deeply into the community that, to my mind, not just human beings but even farm animals would refuse to endure it again.

21 CHAPTER 10

Group four is undeniably troublesome, with all sorts mixed together. Long-standing pressure has kept these men down; they never manage to rise out of it. Ancient debts leave them tottering, whether their trouble comes from doing nothing, mishandling business or simply spending too much. Worn down by commitments to appear in court, legal judgments and sales of their belongings, many are said to be making their way to the camp from Rome and the farms. To me they look like persistent repudiators of debt, not formidable soldiers. If falling is inevitable because standing is beyond them, they should fall promptly. But they must do it without making the state, or even the people next door, feel the effects. What I cannot understand is their reasoning: why should being unable to lead a respectable life make a disgraceful death desirable? Why imagine that destruction alongside many others will be less painful than destruction on their own?

22 The fifth group consists of people who kill their own families, hired murderers and, in short, criminals of every kind. I am not calling them back from Catiline. They cannot be torn away from him anyway. Let them perish as bandits: there are too many for the prison to hold. The final group is last not just in the list but in its character and way of life. It is Catiline’s very own, drawn from his chosen men—or rather from his embraces and his lap. You see them with carefully combed hair and gleaming bodies, either without beards or with beards neatly tended. Their tunics have sleeves and reach their feet. What they wrap around themselves looks like sails, not togas. Every bit of effort they put into life, every hour of hard work staying awake, is spent on dinners that last until dawn.

23 These groups contain every gambler and adulterer, everyone filthy and shameless. These elegant, pampered boys have learned more than love-making and being loved, more than dancing and singing. They have also learned to brandish daggers and spread poison. Unless they leave or die, you should realize that even Catiline’s death would leave this breeding ground of future Catilines within the state. Still, what do these miserable people think they are doing? Will they take their little women along to camp? How could they bear being without them, particularly now that the nights are like this? How will they stand the Apennines, the frost and snow? Unless they think learning to dance naked at dinner parties will make winter easier to endure!

24 CHAPTER 11

What a war to be terrified of, when this is the company of prostitutes that will serve as Catiline’s bodyguard! Citizens, line up your protective forces and armies against these splendid troops of his. First set your consuls and commanders against that worn-out, wounded gladiator. Then bring out Italy’s finest and strongest men against that defeated, battered band of shipwrecked people. The cities of our colonies and municipalities will answer Catiline’s wooded hilltops. There is no need for me to compare the rest of your resources, equipment and defenses with that bandit’s poverty and lack of means.

25 Put aside what we have and he does not: the Senate, Rome’s knights, the city, the public treasury and its revenues, the whole of Italy, every province and the nations abroad. Compare just the causes themselves as they clash. That comparison alone shows how badly beaten his side is. On ours, a sense of shame fights against their outrageous behavior; sexual restraint against sexual corruption; trustworthiness against deception; duty to gods and family against crime; firmness against madness; respectability against disgrace; self-control against lust. In short, fairness, moderation, courage, good judgment and every virtue are struggling against injustice, extravagance, cowardice, rashness and every vice. Finally, plenty faces poverty, good planning faces ruined judgment, a healthy mind faces insanity, and reasonable hope faces despair about everything. In a struggle and battle like that, even if human commitment gave out, would not the gods themselves make all these great vices yield to those splendid virtues?

26 CHAPTER 12

Citizens, this being the situation, do as I told you earlier: protect your houses with watchers and guards. I have already arranged and planned adequate protection for the city without frightening you or causing any disorder. I have informed all your fellow citizens in the colonies and municipalities about Catiline’s departure by night. They will have no difficulty defending their towns and territories. The gladiators, whom he thought he could rely on most, will remain under our control, even though their intentions are better than those of some patricians. Anticipating this, I sent Quintus Metellus ahead into the Gallic district and Picenum. He will either crush the man or stop every move and attempt he makes. As for the remaining decisions, preparations and actions, we will now refer them to the Senate. You can see it being summoned.

27 Let me now warn the men who stayed in Rome—or rather, the men Catiline left here to endanger the city and every one of you. They may be enemies, but since they were born citizens I want them warned repeatedly. If anyone has thought my mildness too lax until now, it had a purpose: to wait until the hidden danger broke into the open. From this point onward I cannot forget that this is my country, that I am consul to these people, and that I must either live among them or die for them. Nobody is guarding the gates or waiting in ambush along the road. If anyone wants to leave, I can look the other way. But let someone make a move inside Rome, and let me catch him in any act—or even the beginning of an attempt—against his country. He will discover that this city has watchful consuls, outstanding magistrates and a resolute Senate. It has weapons. It has the prison our ancestors intended to punish crimes that are both wicked and openly proved.

28 CHAPTER 13

Our handling of everything will settle the largest matters while causing the smallest disruption, and overcome the worst dangers without disorder. It will end a civil war, a war within our own country, greater and more cruel than any remembered by humankind, with me alone directing and commanding in civilian dress. Citizens, my approach will spare even wrongdoers in this city from paying the penalty for their crimes, if that can possibly be done. But flagrant reckless force, or danger hanging over our homeland, may leave me no choice but to give up that mild approach. In that event I will certainly accomplish what one can scarcely dare to hope for in a war so grave and full of traps. No decent citizen will lose his life. Penalizing a small number will make it possible to keep every one of you safe.

29 Citizens, I make these promises without relying on my own foresight or human planning. I rely on the many clear signs the immortal gods have given. Following their guidance, I have reached this hope and this decision. They are no longer protecting us from a distant enemy abroad, as they once used to do, from far away. They are present here, using their divine power and help to defend their own temples and our city’s buildings. Pray to them, citizens. Honor them and appeal to them. They wanted this city to be the most beautiful, prosperous and powerful of all. Now that every hostile force has been defeated both by land and by sea, ask them to protect it against the wicked crime of its most corrupt citizens.

1 CHAPTER 1

Citizens, today you see our country, all your lives, your property and possessions, your wives and children, and this home of a glorious empire, this exceptionally prosperous and beautiful city, rescued from fire and sword and almost from the jaws of death. The immortal gods’ great love for you, and my efforts, plans, and risks, have saved all this and restored it to you.

2 The days when our lives are saved are just as happy and important to us as the days when we are born. Being saved brings certain joy; what birth will bring is uncertain. We are born without knowing it, but we feel the pleasure of being saved. Our affection and praise have raised the founder of this city to the rank of the immortal gods. Surely, then, you and your descendants should honor the man who saved this same city after it had been founded and had grown. We have put out the fires that had almost been set all around the city, its temples, shrines, houses, and walls. We have also blunted the swords drawn against our country and pushed their points away from your throats.

3 My efforts have brought these matters to light in the Senate, exposed them, and established the facts. I will now give you a brief account. You do not yet know what happened and are waiting to hear. You will learn how serious the plot was, how clear the evidence is, and how it was tracked down and caught.

To begin with, a few days ago Catiline rushed out of the city. He left his partners in crime behind in Rome as the fiercest leaders of this wicked war. Since then, citizens, I have kept watch and planned ahead without stopping, to see how we could stay safe amid such serious and deeply hidden plots.

Chapter 2

When I was driving Catiline out of the city—I am no longer afraid of the resentment that word may cause; I have more reason to fear resentment over his leaving alive—when I wanted him driven out of the city, I thought the rest of the conspirators would either leave with him or be weak and helpless without him if they stayed.

4 But I saw that the men I knew to be burning with the greatest madness and criminal intent were still here among us in Rome. I spent every day and night finding out and watching what they were doing and planning. The unbelievable scale of the crime made my account less convincing to your ears. So I worked to secure such a firm grasp of the facts that you would at last turn your minds to protecting yourselves when you saw the crime itself with your own eyes. I learned that Publius Lentulus had approached the envoys of the Allobroges to start a war beyond the Alps and an uprising in Gaul. They had been sent back to their own people in Gaul, with instructions to visit Catiline on the same journey and take him letters and messages. Titus Volturcius had been assigned to travel with them and had been given a letter for Catiline. I thought this gave me the opportunity to achieve what was hardest of all, something I had always prayed to the immortal gods for: not just I, but the Senate and you as well, could catch the whole plot in the act, with clear proof.

5 So yesterday I summoned the praetors Lucius Flaccus and Gaius Pomptinus, very brave men deeply devoted to our country. I explained the situation and told them what I wanted done. Their views on every public issue were honorable and outstanding, and they accepted the job without objection or delay. At dusk they secretly reached the Mulvian Bridge. There they split into two groups and took up positions in nearby country houses, with the Tiber and the bridge between them. They themselves had brought many brave men to the same place without raising anyone’s suspicions. I had also sent several picked young men from the prefecture of Reate, armed with swords. I regularly rely on their help to protect the country.

6 Meanwhile, near the end of the third watch of the night, the Allobrogan envoys, with a large escort and Volturcius, were just starting to cross the Mulvian Bridge. They were attacked. They and our men both drew their swords. Only the praetors knew about the plan; the others did not.

Chapter 3

Then Pomptinus and Flaccus intervened and stopped the fighting that had begun. All the letters carried by the group were handed over to the praetors with their seals intact. The men themselves were arrested and brought to me as dawn was breaking. I immediately summoned Cimber Gabinius, the most shameless planner of all these crimes. He still suspected nothing. Lucius Statilius was summoned next, and Cethegus after him. Lentulus was the last to arrive, presumably because, unusually for him, he had stayed up late the previous night handing out letters.

7 The city’s leading and most distinguished men had heard the news and had come to my house in large numbers early that morning. They wanted me to open the letters before taking them to the Senate. Otherwise, if nothing were found in them, it might look as though I had rashly caused all this alarm in the city. I refused to do anything that would keep a matter concerning public danger from being brought, intact, before the public council. Even if the reports I had received had not been borne out, citizens, I did not think I needed to fear being too careful when the country faced such great dangers. As you saw, I quickly called a well-attended meeting of the Senate.

8 Meanwhile, acting at once on information from the Allobroges, I sent the praetor Gaius Sulpicius, a brave man, to remove any weapons in Cethegus’s house. He brought out a very large number of daggers and swords.

Chapter 4

I brought in Volturcius without the Gauls. On the Senate’s orders, I promised him immunity in the name of the state and urged him to tell us what he knew without fear. He was badly frightened and had barely recovered when he spoke. He said he had instructions and a letter from Publius Lentulus for Catiline. Catiline was to enlist the help of slaves and come to the city with his army as soon as possible. The plan was to set the city on fire in every district, following their assigned tasks and areas, and massacre the citizens without limit. Catiline was then to be ready to intercept those fleeing and join forces with these leaders inside the city.

9 The Gauls were then brought in. They said that Publius Lentulus, Cethegus, and Statilius had given them an oath and letters for their people. These men, along with Lucius Cassius, had instructed them to send cavalry to Italy as soon as possible. The conspirators would have no shortage of infantry themselves. Lentulus had assured them that the Sibylline prophecies and the answers of the diviners showed that he was the third Cornelius destined to gain royal power and control of this city. Cinna and Sulla had come before him. Lentulus had also said that this year was fated to see the destruction of the city and its empire. It was the tenth year since the acquittal of the Vestal Virgins, and the twentieth since the burning of the Capitol.

10 They said that Cethegus had disagreed with the others on this point: Lentulus and the rest wanted to carry out the massacre and burn the city during the Saturnalia, but Cethegus thought that was too long to wait.

Chapter 5

To keep the account short, citizens, we ordered the letters said to have been given by each man to be brought out. First we showed his to Cethegus. He identified his seal. We cut the string and read it. In his own handwriting, he told the Senate and people of the Allobroges that he would do what he had promised their envoys. He asked them in turn to do what their envoys had agreed to do for him. A little earlier, Cethegus had at least offered some answer about the swords and daggers found in his house. He had said that he had always been interested in well-made iron tools. But when the letter was read, his guilty conscience broke and crushed him, and he suddenly fell silent. Statilius was brought in and identified both his seal and his handwriting. His letter was read out. It said much the same thing, and he confessed. Then I showed Lentulus his letter and asked if he recognized the seal. He nodded. “It certainly is a familiar seal,” I said. “It is the image of your grandfather, a most distinguished man, who loved his country and his fellow citizens more than anything. Even without a voice, his image should have called you back from such a terrible crime.”

11 His letter to the Senate and people of the Allobroges was read out in the same way. I gave him a chance to say anything he wished about these matters. At first he declined. Some time later, when all the evidence had been presented and made known, he stood up. He asked the Gauls what dealings he had with them and why they had come to his house. He put the same questions to Volturcius. They answered him briefly and firmly, saying who had introduced them to him and how often they had visited. They asked him whether he had said nothing to them about the Sibylline prophecies. Then, suddenly, his crime drove him out of his mind, and he showed how powerful a guilty conscience can be. Although he could have denied this, he unexpectedly confessed, to everyone’s surprise. His ability and his skill in speaking, always his strong points, failed him. So did the shamelessness and dishonesty in which he surpassed everyone. The force of a crime so plainly exposed and proved overwhelmed them all.

12 Then Volturcius suddenly called for the letter that he said Lentulus had given him for Catiline, and ordered it to be opened. Lentulus was deeply shaken, but he still acknowledged both his seal and his handwriting. The letter had no name on it, but read as follows: “The man I have sent to you will tell you who I am. Be a man, and consider what a position you have put yourself in. Look at what your situation now requires, and make sure you get help from everyone, even the lowest.” Gabinius was brought in next. At first he began answering shamelessly, but in the end he denied none of the Gauls’ accusations.

13 To me, citizens, the letters, seals, handwriting, and finally each man’s confession seemed absolutely certain evidence and proof of the crime. But their complexions, their eyes, their expressions, and their silence were even more certain. They were so stunned, stared at the ground so fixedly, and occasionally glanced at each other so furtively that they seemed to be informing against themselves rather than being accused by others.

Chapter 6

Once the evidence had been presented and made known, citizens, I asked the Senate what should be done to protect the country as a whole. Its leading members proposed very strong and firm measures. The Senate adopted them without a single difference of opinion. The Senate’s decree has not yet been written out in full, so I will tell you from memory, citizens, what the Senate decided.

14 First, I am thanked in the strongest terms because my courage, judgment, and foresight have freed the country from the greatest dangers. Next, the praetors Lucius Flaccus and Gaius Pomptinus are rightly and deservedly praised for their brave and loyal service to me. My colleague, a brave man, is also praised for excluding those involved in this conspiracy from his own counsels and those of the state. The Senate decided that Publius Lentulus should be placed in custody after resigning his praetorship. Gaius Cethegus, Lucius Statilius, and Publius Gabinius, who were all present, were also to be placed in custody. The same decree applied to Lucius Cassius, who had demanded charge of burning the city; Marcus Ceparius, who, according to the evidence, had been assigned Apulia, where he was to stir up the shepherds; Publius Furius, one of the colonists Lucius Sulla had settled at Faesulae; Quintus Annius Chilo, who had constantly worked with this Furius in trying to win over the Allobroges; and Publius Umbrenus, a freedman who was known to have first taken the Gauls to Gabinius. The Senate showed such leniency, citizens, that it believed the country could be saved by punishing nine thoroughly corrupt men. With so great a conspiracy and so many enemies within our country, it thought this would bring the others back to their senses.

15 A public thanksgiving to the immortal gods for their extraordinary services was also decreed in my name. I am the first civilian to receive this honor since the city’s foundation. The decree used these words: “Because I had saved the city from fires, the citizens from massacre, and Italy from war.” There is this difference between that thanksgiving and all the others: the others were ordered for successes in serving the state, but this one alone for saving it. And the first thing that needed to be done has already been done and completed. Once the evidence had been exposed, Publius Lentulus, by his own confessions and the Senate’s judgment, had lost not just his rights as praetor but also those of a citizen. Still, he resigned his office. The distinguished Gaius Marius had felt no religious scruple that prevented him from killing the praetor Gaius Glaucia, against whom no decree had been passed by name. By making Lentulus a private citizen, we freed ourselves from any such scruple about punishing him.

16 CHAPTER 7

Now, citizens, you hold the wicked leaders of this deeply criminal and dangerous war under arrest and in your power. With these dangers driven from the city, you should understand that all Catiline’s forces, hopes, and resources have collapsed. When I was driving him out of the city, citizens, I saw this clearly: once Catiline was removed, I had no reason to fear Publius Lentulus’s sleepiness, Lucius Cassius’s fat, or Gaius Cethegus’s reckless madness. Of all of them, Catiline was the one man to fear, but only as long as he remained inside the city walls. He knew everything and how to approach everyone. He could speak to people, test them, and win them over, and he had the nerve to do it. His mind was suited to planning crimes, and his tongue and hands were ready to carry out his plans. He already had particular men selected and assigned to perform particular jobs. Nor did he think that giving an order meant it had been carried out. He attended to everything himself, went where he was needed, stayed awake, and worked hard. He could bear cold, thirst, and hunger.

17 Here was a man so energetic, so daring, so prepared, so cunning, so watchful in crime, and so hardworking in a desperate cause. I forced him out of his plots inside the city and into an armed band of robbers in the field. If I had not done that, I will say what I think, citizens: I could not easily have lifted this enormous weight of trouble off your necks. He would not have set the Saturnalia as our date. He would not have announced the day of the country’s destruction and doom so far in advance. He would not have allowed his seal or his letters to be seized as clear witnesses to his crime. Instead, in his absence, things were handled so that no theft in a private house was ever detected as openly as this conspiracy against the whole country has been caught and proved. If Catiline had stayed in the city until today, then, although I confronted and blocked every plan of his while he was here, we would, to put it mildly, have had to fight him. With that enemy inside the city, we could never have freed our country from such great dangers so peacefully, so calmly, and so quietly.

18 CHAPTER 8

Still, citizens, although I managed all these matters, they seem to have been planned and carried out under the direction and guidance of the immortal gods. We can infer this because it hardly seems possible that human judgment could have directed affairs of such importance. But at this time the gods have also brought us help and support so directly that we can almost see them with our eyes. I will leave aside the blazing torches seen at night in the west and the glow in the sky. I will pass over the lightning strikes and earthquakes and the other events that have occurred in such numbers during our consulship that the immortal gods seemed to be foretelling what is happening now. But what I am about to tell you, citizens, certainly must not be passed over or left out.

19 You surely remember that, during the consulship of Cotta and Torquatus, several things on the Capitol were struck by lightning. Images of the gods were knocked from their places, statues of men of earlier times were thrown down, and bronze tablets recording the laws were melted. Even Romulus, the founder of this city, was struck. You remember his gilded statue on the Capitol, showing him as a small nursing child reaching with his mouth for a she-wolf’s teats. At that time, diviners gathered from all over Etruria. They said that massacre, fires, the destruction of the laws, civil war within our country, and the downfall of the entire city and empire were approaching. They said this could be prevented only if the immortal gods were appeased in every way and used their divine power to change what was practically fate itself.

20 So, following their answers, games were held for ten days, and nothing that could help appease the gods was left undone. The diviners also ordered a larger image of Jupiter to be made and set up in a high place. Unlike the earlier image, it was to face east. They said they hoped that, if the statue you see looked toward the sunrise, the Forum, and the Senate house, the secret plans against the safety of the city and its empire would be brought to light, so that the Senate and the Roman people could see them clearly. The consuls of that year contracted to have the statue set up. But the work was so slow that it was not put in place either under the previous consuls or during our term before today.

21 CHAPTER 9

Who here can be so opposed to the truth, so rash, so out of his mind as to deny that everything we see, and especially this city, is governed by the direction and power of the immortal gods? The diviners had answered that massacre, fires, and the destruction of the country were being planned, and by citizens. Some people then thought these crimes too enormous to believe. Now you have learned that wicked citizens not only planned them but actually set about carrying them out. And is the gods’ presence not so clear in this next event that it seems to have happened at the direction of Jupiter, Best and Greatest? This morning, on my orders, the conspirators and those giving evidence against them were being led through the Forum to the Temple of Concord. At that very moment the statue was being set up. Once it was in place, facing you and the Senate, both you and the Senate saw every plan against everyone’s safety brought to light and exposed.

22 Those men deserve all the more hatred and punishment for trying to bring deadly, wicked fires not just to your homes and houses but also to the temples and shrines of the gods. If I said that I had stopped them, I would claim too much for myself, and my claim would be unbearable. It was Jupiter, Jupiter himself, who stopped them. He wanted the Capitol, these temples, this entire city, and all of you to be safe. With the immortal gods as my guides, I formed this purpose and resolve and reached this decisive evidence. Consider the attempt to win over the Allobroges. Lentulus and the other enemies inside our country would surely never have been so foolish as to entrust such important matters and letters to strangers and barbarians if the immortal gods had not stripped these wildly daring men of their judgment. And what about this? These Gauls came from a state that had hardly been brought to peace. They are the one people left who seem both able and willing to make war on the Roman people. Yet they rejected the prospect of power and the greatest advantages, offered to them without their asking by men of patrician rank. They put your safety ahead of their own strength. Do you not think the gods made this happen, especially since the Gauls could have defeated us not by fighting, but simply by keeping quiet?

23 CHAPTER 10

So, citizens, since a thanksgiving has been decreed at every sacred couch of the gods, celebrate those days with your wives and children. Many honors have often been rightly paid to the immortal gods as their due. But none have ever been more deserved than these. You have been rescued from a most cruel and miserable death, rescued without killing, without bloodshed, without an army, without a battle. You have won as civilians. I alone, also a civilian, was your leader and commander.

24 Think back, citizens, over all our civil conflicts—not just those you have heard about, but those you remember and have seen yourselves. Lucius Sulla crushed Publius Sulpicius. He dealt with Gaius Marius, this city’s protector, and many brave men by driving some from the country and killing others. The consul Gnaeus Octavius used force to drive his colleague out of the city. This whole place was overflowing with heaps of bodies and the blood of citizens. Later, Cinna and Marius won. Then the murder of our most distinguished men put out the brightest lights of our community. Later, Sulla avenged the cruelty of that victory. There is no need even to say how many citizens were lost or how much the country suffered. Marcus Lepidus broke with Quintus Catulus, a very distinguished and brave man. It was not so much his own death as the deaths of the others that brought grief to the country.

25 [Yet all those] conflicts aimed not to destroy the state but to change it. Those men did not want there to be no state, but to be the leaders of the state that existed. They did not want this city to burn down, but to prosper in it themselves. Yet every one of those conflicts, none of which sought the country’s destruction, was settled not by restoring harmony but by slaughtering citizens. This war alone was the greatest and cruelest in human memory. No barbarian people has ever fought such a war against its own people. Lentulus, Catiline, Cethegus, and Cassius laid down this rule for it: everyone who could remain safe if the city survived was to be counted as an enemy. In this war, citizens, I acted so as to keep you all safe. Your enemies expected that only those citizens who escaped unlimited slaughter would survive, and only those parts of the city that the flames could not reach. But I saved both the city and its citizens whole and unharmed.

26 CHAPTER 11

For these great achievements, citizens, I will ask you for no reward for courage, no mark of honor, and no monument to my credit, except an everlasting memory of this day. I want all my triumphs, all my honorary decorations, all my monuments to glory, and all my marks of distinction to be stored and set up in your minds. Nothing mute can please me, nothing silent, nothing, in short, of a kind that less deserving people can also obtain. Your memory, citizens, will nourish my achievements. People’s conversations will make them grow. Written records will give them lasting strength as time goes on. I believe that the city’s safety and the memory of my consulship have been given the same lifespan, which I hope will last forever. Two citizens have appeared in this country at the same time: one to set the boundaries of your empire by the regions of the sky, not of the earth; the other to preserve the home and seat of that empire.

27 CHAPTER 12

But what I have done leaves me in a different situation, with different prospects, from men who have fought wars abroad. I have to live with the people I have defeated and subdued. Those men left their enemies dead or crushed. So it is your responsibility, citizens, to make sure that, while other men rightly benefit from their deeds, mine never bring me harm. I made sure that the criminal and wicked intentions of these utterly reckless men could not harm you. It is for you to make sure they do not harm me. Still, citizens, those men can no longer do me personally any harm. The support I have secured forever among good citizens is strong. My standing in the country is high and will always defend me without a word. The power of conscience is great. Those who ignore it will expose themselves when they try to hurt me.

28 I am determined, citizens, not to give way to anyone’s recklessness, and always to take the initiative against every wrongdoer. But if every attack by enemies within our country, driven back from you, turns against me alone, you will have to consider, citizens, what position you want men to be in from now on when they have faced resentment and every danger to keep you safe. For myself, what more could I gain to make life rewarding? In particular, I see no higher point I would want to reach, either in the honors you bestow or in the glory that courage brings.

29 I will certainly make sure, citizens, that, as a private citizen, I defend and add distinction to what I achieved as consul. If saving the country has brought me any resentment, it must hurt those who feel it and add to my glory. In short, I will act in public life with my achievements always in mind. I will make sure people see that they were the result of courage, not chance. Citizens, it is now night. Pay your respects to Jupiter, the guardian of this city and of you, and go back to your homes. Although the danger has now been driven away, still protect your homes with guards and watches just as you did last night. I will make sure, citizens, that you do not have to keep doing this for long and that you can live in lasting peace.

1 CHAPTER 1

Senators, I can see you all looking at me, your faces and eyes turned my way. Your worries concern not just yourselves and the state. Even if that danger passes, you are worried about what may happen to me. Your good will gives me pleasure in trouble and comfort in suffering. But I beg you, by the gods who never die, to stop worrying about that. Put my survival out of your thoughts. Think instead about yourselves and your children. If being consul means that I must face every bitter experience, every suffering and torture, I will face them. I will do so gladly as well as courageously, so long as my work brings security and a position of honor to you and to Rome’s people.

2 I am a consul, senators, who has never been safe from deadly plots anywhere. Not in the Forum, the home of justice. Not on the Campus, made sacred by the taking of omens for consular elections. Not in the Senate House, the ultimate place of help for every nation. Not in my own house, the refuge everyone normally has, or in my bed, meant for sleep. Not even here in the seat that honors my office. I have said nothing about much of this. I have put up with much and made many concessions. When you were frightened, I put many things right by accepting suffering myself. Suppose, then, that the gods intended this as the outcome of my time as consul: that I would save you and Rome’s people from a dreadful slaughter; save your wives, children and the Vestal Virgins from the worst mistreatment; save the temples, shrines and this beautiful country we all belong to from a loathsome fire; save the whole of Italy from warfare and destruction. If so, let me undergo whatever fate awaits me personally. Prophets persuaded Publius Lentulus that his name marked him out to destroy the state. Why, then, should I not welcome the thought that my consulship has proved almost marked out by fate to save the Roman people?

3 CHAPTER 2

Senators, your business is to protect yourselves and plan for your country’s future. Preserve your lives, your families and your possessions. Uphold the Roman people’s good name and security. Give up trying to spare me. Stop making me your concern. For one thing, I ought to expect the gods who protect this city to repay me as my conduct deserves. For another, if something does happen, I will be ready to die without losing my composure. A courageous man cannot die disgracefully. Someone who has attained the consulship cannot die before his time, nor can a wise man die unhappily. I am not, however, a man without feelings. The sorrow of my dear, devoted brother standing here affects me, as do the tears of all the men you see gathered around my seat. Again and again my mind goes home to my wife, out of her senses with fear, and my daughter, overcome by it. I think of my small son: it seems to me that the state holds him close as a guarantee of my consulship. I also think of my son-in-law, there in front of me, waiting for the day’s outcome. All of them affect me. But the effect is to make me want them all to survive with you, even at the cost of my being struck down, rather than have them and us destroyed together when the state falls.

4 So put your strength behind the state’s survival, senators. Consider all the storms ahead if you do not take care now. This is no case of Tiberius Gracchus facing danger and your severe judgment for seeking another term as tribune. Nor of Gaius Gracchus for trying to mobilize the land-reform party. Nor of Lucius Saturninus for murdering Gaius Memmius. The prisoners in our hands stayed in Rome so that they could set it on fire, murder every senator and receive Catiline. We have the letters, the seal impressions and the writing itself. We even have a confession from each man. Approaches are being made to the Allobroges; slaves are being incited; a summons is going out to Catiline. Their plan, in short, is to kill everybody. No survivor is to remain even to grieve for the name of the Roman people or lament the destruction of this great empire.

5 CHAPTER 3

We learned all this from the witnesses, and the defendants admitted it. Your own decisions have already settled the matter repeatedly. First came your exceptionally warm thanks to me and your formal declaration that my courage and attention had uncovered the conspiracy of these desperate men. Then you required Publius Lentulus to give up his office as praetor. After that you ordered his detention, along with the others whose conduct you had judged. Above all, you voted to hold a thanksgiving on my behalf. No one wearing civilian dress had been honored that way before me. Finally, only yesterday you granted substantial rewards to the Allobroges’ representatives and Titus Volturcius. Taken together, these actions leave no doubt: you have passed judgment against the individuals you specifically ordered into custody.

6 Even so, senators, I decided to submit both issues to you as though nothing had yet been settled: what you think of the crime, and what punishment you recommend. I will say first what my office requires. For a long time I could see a great madness spreading in public life, with unfamiliar troubles being stirred together and set in motion. But I never imagined citizens were organizing anything as vast and deadly as this conspiracy. Whatever the facts, and whichever way your thoughts and votes turn, you have to settle it before dark. You can see the scale of the crime reported to you. You are very wrong if you think only a handful are connected with it. This evil has spread farther than people realize. It has traveled throughout Italy, crossed the Alps as well, and quietly worked its way into many provinces already. You will never put it down by holding back and postponing action. Choose whatever method you wish, but punish it without delay.

7 CHAPTER 4

At present there are two opinions before us. Decimus Silanus proposes death for the men who attempted to destroy everything here. Gaius Caesar excludes execution but accepts the harshest aspects of every other punishment. Both men are taking the strictest possible position, appropriate to their standing and the seriousness of events. Silanus thinks these men should not be allowed another instant alive, breathing the air that everyone shares. They tried to take life from every one of us and from Rome’s people, abolish our power and wipe out our very name. He remembers repeated occasions when the state has used this penalty on criminal citizens. Caesar’s understanding is different. In his view the immortal gods provided death not to punish us but as something nature makes inevitable, or as relief from suffering and hardship. That explains why wise men have always accepted it willingly, and brave men have often positively welcomed it. Confinement, on the other hand, especially confinement for the rest of one’s life, was surely devised to punish an exceptionally wicked crime. Caesar wants the prisoners divided up among the municipalities. Ordering the towns to do this seems unfair; asking them seems difficult.

8 Vote for it nonetheless, if you think fit. I will take the task on, and I hope to find people who regard refusal, not compliance, as beneath their dignity when everyone’s safety is at stake. Caesar would impose a serious penalty on a town if one of its prisoners broke free. He would put frightening restrictions around the prisoners, suited to the wickedness of desperate men. He stipulates that nobody, whether acting through a vote of the senators or of the people, may make the condemned men’s punishment lighter. He removes even their hope, ordinarily the last comfort that misery leaves a person. Their possessions, too, are to become public property. These criminals would keep only their lives. To take life away instead would, through one painful moment, release them from numerous mental and bodily sufferings and all the consequences of their crimes. That is why people in ancient times wanted there to be certain punishments of this sort for the wicked after death: they wanted wrongdoing to face some prospect of terror during life. Evidently they understood that death itself was nothing to be scared of if those punishments were taken away.

9 CHAPTER 5

I understand my own stake in this, senators. Caesar has chosen the political course regarded as supporting the people. If you accept his recommendation, having him put forward and vouch for it may mean fewer popular attacks for me to fear. Choosing the alternative may, I suspect, make more trouble for me. But whatever danger I calculate for myself must give way to the public interest. In Caesar’s recommendation we have, as we should expect from his standing and his family’s greatness, a guarantee of continuing loyalty to the state. We can now distinguish the irresponsible behavior of platform speakers from a mind genuinely devoted to the people and their survival.

10 One man who wants a reputation as a people’s champion is, I notice, absent. Presumably he wishes to avoid giving an opinion in a capital case involving Roman citizens. Yet two days ago he ordered Roman citizens to be held, voted a thanksgiving for me, and yesterday gave the witnesses exceptionally large rewards. When someone votes to detain the defendant, congratulate the investigator and reward the witness, surely his judgment on the entire affair and the case is beyond doubt. Caesar recognizes, however, that the Sempronian law was made to protect Roman citizens. Anyone who becomes an enemy of the state cannot remain a citizen at all. Even the author of that law, he recognizes, paid the penalty to the state on the people’s orders. Nor does Caesar regard lavish, spendthrift Lentulus as eligible even for the title of people’s champion, after his savage and merciless planning against Rome’s people and against the city’s existence. Although an extremely gentle and mild man, he has no hesitation in putting Publius Lentulus in darkness and confinement forever. He also makes a rule for the future: nobody may boast of easing this prisoner’s sentence and later pose as a popular leader by ruining the people of Rome. Confiscation comes too, so that bodily destitution and begging will follow all their mental suffering.

11 CHAPTER 6

If this is your decision, then, you will give me someone the people are fond of and happy to hear as a companion when I address them. If you favor Silanus instead, the people will readily absolve both you and me from blame for cruelty. I will make good the argument that his course was far gentler. Really, senators, where is the cruelty in punishing a crime of such enormous wickedness? My own feelings guide my judgment. As truly as I hope to share a safe republic with you, my forcefulness here comes not from a taste for brutality—who is gentler than I am?—but from an exceptional feeling for human beings and their suffering. In my mind’s eye the city, which gives light to the world and stands as the stronghold of every nation, suddenly collapses in one great blaze. I see miserable piles of dead citizens left without burial in a homeland itself buried. Cethegus’s face and his mad delight in murdering you keep appearing before me.

12 Then I imagine Lentulus on the throne: he confessed himself that this was what the prophecies had led him to expect. I imagine Gabinius beside him as his courtier in purple and Catiline arriving at the head of troops. I shudder at the cries of married women, at boys and girls running away, at the outrage inflicted on Vesta’s virgins. Because I find all this so deeply wretched and deserving of pity, I will be severe and forceful against those who wanted to do it. Consider a head of household whose slave had killed his children, whose wife had been murdered and whose house had been set alight. If he failed to punish the slaves with the greatest severity, would we call him kind and compassionate, or utterly cruel and inhuman? I would call him hard and heartless if he did not relieve his own torment and grief by making the guilty suffer and feel pain. Our position is the same. These men intended the slaughter of our families and ourselves. They tried to wipe out every individual home and the home the whole state shares. They meant to establish the Allobroges as a nation where our city now stands, amid the ashes of our empire after its burning. Acting against them with the greatest determination will earn us the name of compassionate men. Choosing a softer course will mean being known for the worst cruelty as country and citizens are destroyed.

13 Unless, perhaps, someone found Lucius Caesar too cruel two days ago? He is exceptionally brave and devoted to the republic. His sister is an excellent woman, yet he said that her husband should lose his life, while that husband stood there listening. He recalled how a consul had ordered his grandfather’s death, and how the grandfather’s son, not yet an adult and sent by his father as an envoy, was killed in jail. Had those men done anything like this? Had they formed a plan to demolish the state? There was then a movement for distributions of public gifts, together with a certain struggle between political factions. In those days Lentulus’s grandfather, a man of great distinction, took up weapons in pursuit of Gracchus. He even received a serious injury to keep the state’s power from being reduced in any way. His grandson, by contrast, is calling in Gauls and inciting slaves and summoning Catiline in order to overturn the state’s foundations. Cethegus is assigned the senators’ murder, Gabinius the killing of the remaining citizens, Cassius the burning of Rome, and Catiline the devastation and plundering of Italy as a whole. I advise you to be less afraid of seeming overly severe in deciding about such an immense and wicked crime. Being thought cruel to our country because we reduced the punishment is a much greater danger than being thought overly harsh to our deadliest enemies because we punished them strictly.

14 CHAPTER 7

Senators, I cannot conceal what I am hearing. People have been making remarks that have reached me. They seem concerned that I will not have sufficient support to implement today’s decisions. Everything has been anticipated, readied and arranged. My extreme care and attention have contributed, senators, but a far greater contribution has come from the people’s determination to hold on to supreme power and preserve the possessions we all share. Every social order is represented here, every sort of person and indeed every age. Crowds fill the Forum, the surrounding temples and every approach to the temple where we are meeting. Since Rome’s foundation there has never been another cause on which everybody held exactly the same view. The exceptions are those who, realizing their own destruction was coming, chose to perish with all the rest rather than by themselves.

15 I gladly leave those people out and put them in a class apart. I would count them among our fiercest enemies, not among our bad citizens. But the others! By the immortal gods, what numbers, what commitment, what courage they bring to their common purpose of security and honor! Why speak here about Rome’s knights? They concede your order’s first place in standing and deliberation, while challenging you to match their devotion to the state. After years of disagreement with this order, they have returned to agreement and partnership. Today’s cause and today’s gathering bind you together. Keep this union, strengthened in my term as consul, permanently alive in public life, and I assure you that no further civil or internal evil will ever threaten any part of the state. Equally eager to defend it, I see the very courageous treasury tribunes assembled here. All the clerks have come as well. This happened to be a day that brought large numbers of them to the treasury, and I see them turn from waiting for lots to be drawn to the question of our common survival.

16 The freeborn have turned out in full, including people with very little. Can anyone fail to love these temples, the view of Rome, the freedom they possess, the very daylight and the ground their countrymen share? Can anyone fail to find these things delightful and precious?

Chapter 8

The freedmen’s commitment deserves your attention, senators. They earned their place as citizens by their own qualities, and genuinely think of this as their homeland. Some people born here, into the very highest families, have instead treated it as the home of their enemies, not their own country. Yet why list these orders and these people? Concern for their possessions, for the state they hold in common, and above all for freedom, which is sweetest of all, has moved them to protect their country. Even slaves, as long as life in slavery is reasonably bearable, all recoil from the recklessness of these citizens. They want what we have to remain standing. Each puts as much of his good will behind its preservation as he is able and dares to give.

17 Perhaps you are worried by something you have heard: a pimp employed by Lentulus has been dashing from shop to shop, expecting money to win over needy, uneducated people. An effort of that kind was indeed started and tried. But nobody has turned out to be so poor in circumstances or so hopeless in intentions that he does not want to keep safe the very spot where he sits to work and make his daily income. He wants his sleeping corner, his small bed and, in short, his peaceful pattern of living preserved. Far and away most shopkeepers—or, to put it more accurately, all of this class—are passionate supporters of peace. Their tools, their labor and their income rely on a city busy with people and thrive when it is quiet. Closing their shops normally costs them earnings. What would burning the shops have done?

18 The people of Rome, then, are not failing to provide you with support. Make sure you are not seen to let them down.

Chapter 9

You have a consul brought safely through numerous traps and dangers, and out of death itself, not to keep himself alive but to save you. All social orders agree in their minds, intentions and words that the state must survive. Our country, which belongs to us all, is trapped by the fires and weapons of a godless conspiracy. She holds out her hands, begging you. She puts herself in your care; she puts the citizens’ lives there, the citadel and Capitol there, the household gods’ altars there, Vesta’s unending fire there, every god’s temple and sanctuary there, the city walls and buildings there. Beyond this, today it is for you to judge the fate of your own lives, the lives of your families, everyone’s possessions, your houses and your firesides.

19 Your leader puts you first and himself out of mind. That is not an opportunity that always comes your way. Every social order, every individual, Rome’s entire population, holds the same opinion. Today, for the first time in a domestic political question, we see that happen. Think of the work it took to found our empire, the bravery that secured liberty, and the gods’ generosity that enlarged and increased our resources. One night came close to undoing it all. Your duty today is to prevent citizens ever again not just accomplishing something like that, but even imagining it. I say this not to spur you on, since you almost get ahead of me in commitment, but to show that my voice has carried out the consul’s responsibilities. It is a voice that ought to lead the state.

20 CHAPTER 10

Before going back to the question under debate, let me speak briefly about myself. I recognize that the enemies I have acquired number as many as the conspirators. As you can see, that group is extremely large. But I regard it as shameful, powerless and contemptible. Perhaps one day someone’s criminal madness will stir that group into greater strength than your authority and the state’s. Even if that happens, senators, I will never wish I had acted or decided differently. Everyone faces death, the threat they may be making against me. Nobody, though, has attained the degree of praise for his life that you have conferred on mine by your decrees. In other cases the thanksgiving you have decreed has always been for good service to the state. Only in mine has it been for keeping the state in existence.

21 Give Scipio his fame: his strategy and bravery forced Hannibal out of Italy and back to Africa. Give the other Africanus his outstanding praise: he destroyed the empire’s two most hostile cities, Carthage and Numantia. Recognize Paulus as exceptional: Perseus, once a king of the highest power and birth, added distinction to his chariot. Let Marius’s fame last forever: he twice released Italy from siege and fear of enslavement. Rank Pompey higher than everyone: his accomplishments and courage have the same geographical reach and boundaries as the path of the sun. Surely there is space for some glory of my own among all those honors. Unless, of course, giving us new provinces to travel out to matters more than ensuring that even men abroad have a home they can come back to victorious.

22 Foreign success does have one advantage over success at home. Defeated foreigners become subjects, or, when accepted as friends, feel indebted to the kindness shown them. With citizens it is different. Once some madness has corrupted them into enemies of their country, stopping their attack on the state does not make it possible either to hold them down with force or win them over with favors. That is why I can see a never-ending struggle with corrupt fellow citizens ahead of me. But I am sure I can readily fend it off from myself and my family. I have your support and that of every good person, and there is the memory of these terrible dangers. That memory will stay forever, not just among the people who were rescued, but in the conversation and thought of every nation. No power, surely, can ever be found great enough to smash and weaken your alliance with the knights and the strong agreement of all the good people.

23 CHAPTER 11

What, then, do I ask in return? For the military command, troops and province that I chose not to take; for the triumph and other public distinctions I refused in order to guard Rome and protect you; for the relationships with provincial clients and hosts, which I nevertheless use my influence at Rome to preserve, working as hard at maintaining them as at acquiring them—for all of this, for my exceptional commitment to you and for my efforts, which you can see, to preserve the state, I ask only that you remember this hour and the whole period of my consulship. While that stays in your minds, I will think of myself as sheltered behind the strongest possible wall. Should violent criminals prove my hope mistaken and overpower it, I put my little boy in your care. His protection, not just from danger but in his social standing, will surely be sufficient if you remember whose son he is: the son of the man who bore all the risk himself and preserved everything here.

24 So deliberate as carefully as you have begun, and with courage. At stake are your ultimate safety and Rome’s, your wives and children, altars and firesides, sanctuaries and temples, all the roofs and dwellings in the city, our power and freedom, Italy’s survival and the entire state. Your consul is a man who will follow your decrees without hesitation. Throughout his remaining life he can defend your decisions and personally make sure they are carried out.