Speech 2

1 CHAPTER 1

At last, citizens, we have driven Lucius Catiline from the city—or let him go, or seen him on his way with our words as he left of his own accord: Catiline, raging with audacity, breathing crime, plotting our country’s destruction in defiance of all that is sacred, threatening you and this city with fire and sword. He has gone, departed, escaped, broken out. No longer will that monstrous, unnatural creature contrive the ruin of these very walls from within them. And this much is beyond dispute: we have defeated the one leader of this civil war. No longer will that dagger move among our ribs; no longer will we live in terror on the Field of Mars, in the Forum, in the Senate House, or even within the walls of our own homes. He was dislodged from his position when he was driven from the city. Now, with no one to hamper us, we shall fight an open, regular war against an enemy. We have certainly ruined the man and won a splendid victory by forcing him out of secret ambush into open banditry.

SECTION 2

He did not carry away a bloodied blade, as he wished; he went out leaving us alive; we wrenched the weapon from his hands; he left the citizens unharmed and the city standing. How utterly crushed and broken with grief do you think he must be? He lies prostrate now, citizens, and feels himself struck down and cast aside. Surely he often turns his eyes back toward this city, mourning that it has been torn from his jaws. The city itself seems to me to rejoice that it has vomited out so deadly a plague and hurled it beyond its gates.

3 CHAPTER 2

Yet if anyone has the spirit everyone ought to have, and fiercely condemns me for the very thing in which my speech exults and triumphs—for letting so deadly an enemy go instead of arresting him—the fault is not mine, citizens, but the times’. Lucius Catiline should long ago have been put to death and subjected to the severest punishment. Ancestral custom, the stern authority of my office, and the republic itself demanded that of me. But how many people do you think there were who would not believe what I reported? How many were too foolish to recognize it? How many actually defended him? How many favored him out of their own wickedness? If I had judged that removing him would ward off every danger from you, I would long ago have removed Lucius Catiline, at the risk not merely of public hatred but of my life.

SECTION 4

But I saw that, even then, before the facts had been proved to all of you, if I punished him with the death he deserved, the hatred stirred against me would prevent me from pursuing his accomplices. I therefore brought matters to this point: you could fight openly once you plainly saw your enemy. How much I think we need fear that enemy outside the city, citizens, you may gather from this: I am actually distressed that so few went out with him. If only he had led all his forces away! He took Tongilius from me, whose lover he had become while the boy still wore his youth’s bordered toga; he took Publicius and Minucius, whose tavern debts could cause no disturbance in the republic. But the men he left behind—what men, with what debts, what influence, what noble birth!

5 CHAPTER 3

And so I hold that army in utter contempt beside our Gallic legions, the troops Quintus Metellus has levied in the territories of Picenum and the Gallic district, and the forces we are raising every day. His army is a gathering of desperate old men, dissolute country dwellers, bankrupt farmers, and men who preferred to default on their court appearances rather than desert that army. Show them not merely our army’s battle line but even a praetor’s summons, and they will collapse. I wish he had taken away with him these soldiers of his whom I see flitting through the Forum, standing beside the Senate House, even entering the Senate, gleaming with perfume and resplendent in purple. If they remain here, remember: it is less that army we must fear than these men who have deserted it. And they are all the more alarming because they know I understand their intentions, yet remain unmoved.

SECTION 6

I see to whom Apulia has been assigned, who holds Etruria, who Picenum, who the Gallic district, who has claimed for himself these murderous ambushes and fires within the city. They know that every plan made the night before last has reached me; I laid them bare in the Senate yesterday. Catiline himself took fright and fled. What are these men waiting for? They are gravely mistaken if they hope my former leniency will last forever.

Chapter 4

I have now gained what I was waiting for: that all of you should plainly see that a conspiracy has been formed against the republic—unless, indeed, someone thinks that men like Catiline do not think as Catiline does. There is no room left for leniency; the situation itself demands severity. One concession I will still make: let them leave, let them go, rather than let poor Catiline waste away with longing for them. I will show them the road. He set out along the Aurelian Way; if they choose to hurry, they will catch him by evening.

SECTION 7

How fortunate the republic, if it can indeed expel this cesspool of the city! With Catiline alone drained away, by Hercules, the republic seems to me relieved and revived. What evil, what crime can anyone imagine or conceive that he has not devised? What poisoner in all Italy, what gladiator, what bandit, what assassin, what parricide, what forger of wills, what swindler, what debauchee, what spendthrift, what adulterer, what disgraced woman, what corrupter of youth, what corrupted or ruined person can be found who would not admit to having lived on the closest terms with Catiline? What murder in these recent years has been committed without him? What unspeakable sexual outrage has not been brought about through him?

SECTION 8

And who ever possessed such powers of seducing the young? Some he himself loved most shamefully; for others he most disgracefully catered to their passions. To some he promised the satisfaction of their lusts, to others the death of their parents, offering not only to urge them on but to help them. And now, how suddenly he had gathered a vast number of ruined men, not only from the city but from the countryside! Not a single man burdened with debt, not merely in Rome but in any corner of all Italy, escaped being enlisted by him in this incredible alliance of crime.

9 CHAPTER 5

To see how varied his pursuits were in their different spheres, consider this: no one in a gladiatorial school with a little extra daring for crime fails to claim the closest intimacy with Catiline; no one on the stage a little more frivolous and worthless fails to recall that he was almost Catiline’s close companion. Yet this same man, schooled by the practice of sexual outrage and crime to endure cold, hunger, thirst, and sleepless nights, was praised by his followers as courageous, though he squandered on lust and reckless daring the resources of hard work and the instruments of virtue.

SECTION 10

If his companions follow him, if these infamous herds of desperate men leave the city, how blessed we shall be, how fortunate the republic, how glorious the distinction of my consulship! For these men’s desires are no longer moderate; their recklessness is no longer human or bearable. They think of nothing but murder, arson, plunder. They have squandered their inheritances and mortgaged their fortunes; their means failed them long ago, their credit has begun to fail them lately. Yet the same appetite they had in their abundance endures. If, amid their wine and gambling, they sought only revels and prostitutes, they would indeed be beyond hope, but still bearable. But who can bear this: idle men plotting against the bravest, fools against the wisest, drunkards against the sober, sleepers against the watchful? There they recline at their feasts, embracing shameless women, languid with wine, stuffed with food, garlanded with flowers, smeared with perfume, enfeebled by debauchery, belching out talk of murdering decent men and burning down the city.

SECTION 11

I am confident that some doom hangs over them, and that the punishment long owed to their wickedness, worthlessness, crime, and lust is either already upon them or surely drawing near. If my consulship removes these men, since it cannot cure them, it will have extended the republic’s life not by some little span but by many centuries. There is no nation we need greatly fear, no king who can make war on the Roman people. Abroad, all has been pacified on land and sea through one man’s courage. A war at home remains: the ambush is within, the danger is shut within, the enemy is within. We must contend with extravagance, with madness, with crime. In this war, citizens, I declare myself your leader; I accept the enmity of ruined men. Whatever can be healed I will heal by any means; whatever must be cut away I will not allow to remain and destroy the state. So let them leave, or keep quiet, or, if they remain both in the city and in the same frame of mind, await what they deserve.

12 CHAPTER 6

Yet there are people, citizens, who say I have driven Catiline out. If I could achieve that with a word, I would drive out the very people who say so. Evidently this timid, even excessively modest man could not endure the consul’s voice: the moment he was ordered into exile, he obeyed! Why, yesterday, after I had nearly been murdered in my own home, I summoned the Senate to the temple of Jupiter the Upholder and laid the whole matter before the assembled senators. When Catiline arrived, what senator addressed him? Who greeted him? Who so much as looked at him as a ruined citizen rather than a most ruthless enemy? Indeed, the leading men of that body left the stretch of benches he approached utterly bare and empty.

SECTION 13

Then I, that ferocious consul who drives citizens into exile with a word, asked Catiline whether or not he had attended the nighttime meeting at Marcus Laeca’s house. When this utterly brazen man, convicted by his own conscience, at first kept silent, I exposed the rest. I explained what he had done that night, where he had been, what he had decided for the next night, and how he had laid out his plan for the whole war. When he faltered, when he was caught, I asked why he hesitated to set out for the place he had long been preparing to go, since I knew that weapons, axes, fasces, trumpets, military standards, and that silver eagle for which he had even made a shrine in his own home had been sent ahead.

SECTION 14

Was I driving into exile a man whom I could see had already embarked on war? For of course that centurion Manlius, who has pitched camp in the territory of Faesulae, has declared war on the Roman people on his own account; of course that camp is not now awaiting Catiline as its commander; and Catiline, driven into exile, is on his way to Massilia, as they say, not to that camp!

Chapter 7

What a wretched predicament, not merely to govern the republic but even to preserve it! Suppose now that Lucius Catiline, hemmed in and weakened by my planning, my labors, and the dangers I have faced, suddenly takes fright, changes his mind, deserts his followers, abandons his plan for war, and turns aside from this course of crime and warfare onto the road of flight and exile. Then, people will say, he was not stripped by me of the weapons of his recklessness, not stunned and terrified by my vigilance, not driven from his hopes and his undertaking, but an innocent man, never convicted, driven into exile by a consul’s force and threats. And there will be people who, if he does this, want him regarded not as wicked but as pitiable, and me not as the most vigilant consul but as the cruelest tyrant!

SECTION 15

It is worth my while, citizens, to face this storm of false and unjust hatred, provided that the danger of this horrible, criminal war is warded off from you. Let people say I drove him out, so long as he goes into exile. But believe me, he is not going to go. Never, citizens, will I pray to the immortal gods that, merely to relieve the hatred against me, you should hear of Lucius Catiline leading an enemy army and ranging about in arms. Yet within three days you will hear it. And I am far more afraid that I may one day be hated for having let him go rather than for having driven him out. But when there are men who call his departure an expulsion, what would those same men say if he had been put to death?

SECTION 16

And yet those who keep saying that Catiline is going to Massilia are not so much complaining of it as fearing it. Not one of them is so compassionate that he would not rather have Catiline go to Manlius than to the people of Massilia. For his part, by Hercules, even if he had never before thought of what he is now doing, he would still rather be killed as a bandit than live an exile. As it is, nothing so far has happened against his own wishes and designs except that he left Rome with us still alive. Let us wish him into exile rather than complain of it.

17 CHAPTER 8

But why do we speak so long of a single enemy—and an enemy who now admits he is one, whom I do not fear because a wall stands between us, as I have always wished—while saying nothing of those who conceal their purpose, who remain in Rome, who are here among us? If it can possibly be done, I am less eager to punish these men than to heal them for their own sake and reconcile them to the republic. Nor do I see why that cannot be done, if they will now listen to me. I will explain to you, citizens, the kinds of men from whom those forces are drawn; then I will bring each kind whatever remedy my counsel and my words can offer.

SECTION 18

One kind consists of men who have great debts, but still greater possessions, and whose love of those possessions makes it impossible for them to clear their debts. These men present a most respectable appearance—they are wealthy, after all—but their intentions and their cause are utterly shameless. Can you be richly furnished and supplied with lands, houses, silver, slaves, and property of every kind, yet hesitate to subtract from your holdings and add to your credit? What are you waiting for? War? Well then, do you suppose that in the devastation of everything your possessions will be sacred and inviolable? Or are you waiting for new debt ledgers, wiped clean? Those who expect them from Catiline are mistaken. Through my good offices, new ledgers are being brought out—but auction ledgers. Indeed, there is no other way for those property owners to save themselves. Had they been willing to do this sooner, instead of that supremely foolish attempt to pit the income of their estates against their interest payments, we would find them both wealthier men and better citizens. But I think we have least to fear from these people: either they can be brought to change their minds, or, if they persist, they seem to me more likely to offer prayers against the republic than to take up arms.

19 CHAPTER 9

The second kind consists of men who, though oppressed by debt, nevertheless look for mastery. They want supreme power and believe that in a disordered republic they can attain the offices they despair of attaining while it is at peace. These men, it seems to me, should be given one piece of advice—the very same as all the rest: abandon the hope of achieving what they attempt. First of all, I myself am watchful, present, and providing for the republic. Then there is great spirit among decent men, great harmony between the orders, a vast multitude, and, besides, great forces of soldiers. Finally, the immortal gods will bring their aid in person to this unconquered people, this illustrious empire, this most beautiful city, against so mighty an onslaught of crime. But even if these men had already attained what they desire in their utter madness, do they hope to become consuls or dictators or even kings amid the city’s ashes and the blood of its citizens—the very things their criminal, godless minds have coveted? Do they not see that they desire something which, if they attained it, they would inevitably have to yield to some runaway slave or gladiator?

SECTION 20

The third kind is advanced in years, yet still strong from training. Among them is that Manlius whom Catiline now succeeds. These men come from the colonies Sulla established. I consider those colonies as a whole to be made up of excellent citizens and very brave men; nevertheless, these particular settlers flaunted their unexpected, sudden wealth with excessive expense and insolence. Building as though they were rich, delighting in choice estates, large households of slaves, and elaborate banquets, they sank so deeply into debt that, if they are to be saved, Sulla must be summoned from the underworld for them. They have also swept along a number of poor and needy country people into that same hope of the old plundering. I place both groups in the same class of predators and pillagers, but I give them this warning: stop raving and dreaming of proscriptions and dictatorships. So deep a brand of pain from those times has been burned into the state that, I believe, not merely human beings but even cattle would no longer tolerate such things.

21 CHAPTER 10

The fourth kind is a decidedly mixed, varied, and turbulent collection: men long weighed down, who never rise to the surface, who stagger under old debts incurred partly through idleness, partly through bad management, partly also through extravagance. Many of them, exhausted by commitments to appear in court, lawsuits, and the forced sale of their goods, are said to be making their way from both city and countryside to that camp. I consider them less fierce soldiers than obstinate defaulters. If they cannot stand, let them fall as soon as possible—but so quietly that not merely the state but even their nearest neighbors feel nothing. For I cannot understand why, if they cannot live honorably, they should wish to die in disgrace, or why they think it will hurt less to perish with many others than alone.

SECTION 22

The fifth kind consists of parricides, assassins, and, in short, criminals of every sort. I do not call them back from Catiline: they cannot be torn away from him, and by all means let them perish as bandits, since there are so many that the prison cannot hold them. The last kind, last not merely in the count but in their very character and way of life, is Catiline’s own: men of his selection—no, men from his embrace and his bosom. You see them with their hair combed smooth, gleaming, either beardless or with carefully tended beards, in tunics with long sleeves and hems down to their heels, draped in sails rather than togas. All the energy of their lives, all their labor in keeping awake, is expended on dinners that last until dawn.

SECTION 23

In these herds move all the gamblers, all the adulterers, all the filthy and shameless. These boys, so charming and dainty, have learned not only to love and be loved, to dance and sing, but also to brandish daggers and scatter poisons. Unless they leave, unless they perish, be certain that, even if Catiline dies, this will be a seedbed of Catilines in the republic. Yet what do these wretches have in mind? Will they take their little women with them to the camp? But how will they manage without them, especially with nights like these already upon us? And how will they bear the Apennines, the frost and snow there? Unless they think they will bear winter more easily because they have learned to dance naked at banquets!

24 CHAPTER 11

What a war to tremble at, when Catiline will have this cohort of prostitutes as his bodyguard! Now, citizens, deploy your garrisons and your armies against these splendid forces of Catiline. First set your consuls and commanders against that worn-out, wounded gladiator; then lead out the flower and strength of all Italy against that cast-up, crippled band of shipwrecked men. The cities of the colonies and municipalities will answer Catiline’s wooded hillocks. Nor need I compare the rest of your resources, equipment, and defenses with that bandit’s poverty and destitution.

SECTION 25

But let us leave aside the things with which we are supplied and he is not—the Senate, the Roman knights, the city, the treasury, the revenues, all Italy, every province, foreign nations. Leaving these aside, if we choose to set the opposing causes themselves against each other, we can understand from that alone how utterly beaten they are. On this side a sense of shame fights, on that, insolence; here chastity, there sexual outrage; here good faith, there fraud; here reverence for duty, there crime; here steadfastness, there frenzy; here honor, there disgrace; here self-restraint, there lust. Here, in short, justice, moderation, courage, wisdom—all the virtues—contend with injustice, extravagance, cowardice, recklessness, with all the vices. Finally, abundance clashes with want, sound judgment with ruinous judgment, sanity with madness, and, last of all, good hope with despair of everything. In such a contest and battle, even if human zeal were to fail, would not the immortal gods themselves compel so many and such great vices to be overcome by these glorious virtues?

26 CHAPTER 12

Since this is so, citizens, defend your homes with watches and guards, as I have told you before. I have taken thought and made provision for the city to be adequately protected without fear on your part and without any upheaval. All your fellow citizens in colonies and municipalities have been informed by me of Catiline’s nighttime departure and will easily defend their towns and territories. The gladiators, whom he thought would be his most reliable force, though better disposed than some of the patricians, will nevertheless be kept under our control. Quintus Metellus, whom I sent ahead into the Gallic district and Picenum in anticipation of this, will either crush the man or thwart all his movements and attempts. As for the remaining measures to be decided, expedited, and carried out, I shall now lay them before the Senate, which, as you see, is being summoned.

SECTION 27

Now I want those who have remained in the city—or rather, those whom Catiline has left in the city to destroy it and all of you—to be warned again and again: enemies though they are, they were born citizens. If anyone has thought my leniency too lax until now, it has been waiting for what was hidden to burst into the open. For the rest, I can no longer forget that this is my country, that I am these people’s consul, that I must either live with them or die for them. There is no guard at the gates, no one lying in wait on the road. If any wish to leave, I can turn a blind eye. But whoever makes a move in the city, whoever I catch not merely in an act but in any undertaking or attempt against the country, will learn that in this city there are watchful consuls, outstanding magistrates, a courageous Senate, weapons, and a prison, which our ancestors intended to punish heinous and flagrant crimes.

28 CHAPTER 13

And all this will be done in such a way that the greatest issues are settled with the least disturbance, the greatest dangers with no upheaval, and the greatest and cruelest civil war within our own land in human memory is quelled with me alone, in civilian dress, as leader and commander. I shall manage it, citizens, so that, if it can possibly be done, not even a single wicked man in this city will suffer the punishment of his crime. But if the force of open recklessness, if the danger hanging over our country necessarily draws me away from this lenient disposition, I shall certainly accomplish what, in so great and treacherous a war, seems scarcely even to be hoped for: no good man will perish, and the punishment of a few will secure the safety of you all.

SECTION 29

These promises I make you, citizens, relying neither on my own wisdom nor on human counsels, but on many unmistakable signs from the immortal gods. Under their guidance I have come to this hope and resolve. No longer, as they once did, do they defend us from afar against a distant, foreign enemy: here in our midst, with their divine power and aid, they defend their own temples and the city’s dwellings. You, citizens, must pray to them, worship them, implore them to defend this city, which they have willed to be most beautiful, most flourishing, and most powerful, against the godless crime of its most desperate citizens, now that all the enemy’s forces on land and sea have been overcome.

1 CHAPTER 1

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.