Speech 3

1 CHAPTER 1

Citizens, today you behold the republic restored and kept safe for you: every one of your lives, your goods and fortunes, your wives and children, and this home of our glorious empire, this supremely fortunate and beautiful city. The immortal gods’ boundless love for you, together with my toil, my planning, and the dangers I have faced, has snatched it from fire and sword, almost from the jaws of fate itself.

2 The days on which we are saved bring us no less joy and distinction than those on which we are born. Rescue has a certain gladness; birth an uncertain prospect. We come into being without awareness, but know delight in being preserved. Since affection and renown have raised this city’s founder among the deathless gods, surely the man who preserved that same city, already founded and grown great, ought to receive honor from you and your descendants. For we have quenched the fires all but laid beneath and about the entire city—its temples, its sanctuaries, its homes and walls. We have beaten back the swords unsheathed against the republic and thrust their points away from your throats.

3 Since through my efforts these things have been brought to light, laid bare, and established before the Senate, I will now briefly explain them to you. You who do not yet know and are waiting to hear may learn how great and how unmistakable they were, and how they were tracked down and exposed.

First, when Catiline burst out of the city a few days ago, leaving behind in Rome his partners in crime, the fiercest leaders of this monstrous war, I kept constant watch and took precautions, citizens, to find how we might remain safe amid plots so vast and so deeply hidden.

Chapter 2

For at the time when I was driving Catiline from the city—I no longer fear the resentment caused by that expression, since I have more reason to fear blame for letting him leave alive—when, I say, I wanted him removed beyond the city’s bounds, I thought either that the remaining band of conspirators would leave with him or that those who stayed would be feeble and powerless without him.

4 When I saw that the men I knew to be most ablaze with criminal madness had stayed in Rome and were living among us, I devoted every night and day to watching and discovering their acts and designs. The crime was so immense as to pass belief; my words would win too little credit from your ears. I therefore sought to lay hold of the facts themselves, so that you would turn your minds to your safety once your eyes had seen the wrongdoing. Then I learned that Publius Lentulus had approached the Allobroges’ envoys to stir up war beyond the Alps and an uprising in Gaul. They had been dispatched home to their people in Gaul, with a visit to Catiline on the same journey, carrying letters and instructions. Titus Volturcius had been attached as their companion and entrusted with a letter to Catiline. Here, I thought, was the chance I had always prayed for from the gods, though it was hardest of all to obtain: the whole affair could be caught in clear proof, not by me alone, but by you and by the Senate.

5 Yesterday, therefore, I summoned the praetors Lucius Flaccus and Gaius Pomptinus, men of the greatest courage and devotion to the republic. I explained the matter and told them what I wanted done. With their noble and distinguished commitment to the republic, they undertook the task without objection or a moment’s delay. At dusk they secretly reached the Mulvian Bridge and took up positions in nearby country houses, dividing their forces so that the Tiber and the bridge lay between them. They themselves had brought many brave men there without arousing anyone’s suspicion; I too had sent a number of chosen young men, armed with swords, from the prefecture of Reate, whose services I constantly employ in the republic’s defense.

6 Meanwhile, with the third watch nearly over, the Allobroges’ representatives, accompanied by Volturcius and a large following, began to cross the Mulvian Bridge. They were attacked. Swords came out on their side and on ours. Only the praetors knew the business; everyone else was ignorant of it.

Chapter 3

Flaccus and Pomptinus then intervened to still the fighting that had broken out. Every letter carried by the party was handed over to the praetors, its seal unbroken. The men themselves were arrested and brought before me as dawn was breaking. At once I summoned Cimber Gabinius, the most wicked contriver of all these crimes, while he still suspected nothing. Lucius Statilius was called next, then Cethegus. Lentulus came last of all, presumably because, against his usual habit, writing letters had kept him awake the previous night.

7 The foremost and most distinguished men of our community had heard the news and gathered in large numbers at my house early that morning. They thought I should open the letters before taking them to the Senate: if nothing were found, I might seem to have recklessly plunged the community into such alarm. I refused to withhold the whole matter, untouched, from the public council when the public safety was at stake. Even if what had been reported to me had not been found, citizens, I did not think that amid such dangers to the republic I had to fear being too vigilant. As you saw, I swiftly assembled a crowded Senate.

8 At the same time, following the Allobroges’ warning, I sent the praetor Gaius Sulpicius, a courageous man, to bring out whatever weapons Cethegus might have in his house. He brought away an immense number of daggers and swords.

Chapter 4

I brought Volturcius in without the Gauls, gave him the state’s pledge of immunity as the Senate directed, and urged him to disclose his knowledge without fear. Scarcely recovered from his great alarm, he said that he carried instructions and a letter from Publius Lentulus to Catiline. Catiline was to enlist the help of slaves and bring his army to Rome with all speed. The design was this: when they had set the city alight on every side, according to the allotted plan, and made an unbounded massacre of its people, he should be at hand to catch the fugitives and join the leaders operating within Rome.

9 Next the Gauls entered. Publius Lentulus, Cethegus, and Statilius, they reported, had bound themselves by oath and entrusted letters for their nation to them. Those men, with Lucius Cassius, had prescribed the swiftest possible dispatch of cavalry to Italy; infantry would not be lacking to the conspirators themselves. Lentulus had given them his assurance from the Sibylline oracles and the diviners’ answers: he was the third Cornelius, the man who must inherit kingship and dominion over Rome. Cinna had preceded him, and Sulla. This year, he had further said, was appointed by fate for the city’s and empire’s end: the tenth year following the Vestal Virgins’ acquittal, the twentieth following the Capitol’s burning.

10 They also reported the disagreement between Cethegus and the rest. Lentulus and the others wanted the massacre and the city’s burning to take place at the Saturnalia; Cethegus considered that far too long a wait.

Chapter 5

To be brief, citizens, we ordered the letters said to have been given by each man brought out. Cethegus saw his first and recognized the seal. We severed the cord and read. In his own hand he had written to the Allobroges’ council and people, promising to fulfill his assurances to their envoys and asking them in turn to fulfill what the envoys had undertaken for him. Earlier he had offered some answer about the daggers and swords discovered in his possession: he had always, he said, been a connoisseur of fine ironwork. Once his letter was read, the knowledge of guilt broke and crushed him into sudden silence. Statilius was brought in. He acknowledged both the seal and his handwriting; a letter of much the same purport was read aloud, and he confessed. Next I showed Lentulus his letter and asked whether he recognized its seal. He nodded. “A familiar seal indeed,” I said, “your grandfather’s likeness, the image of an illustrious man who loved his country and his fellow citizens beyond all else. Even without a voice, that image should have called you back from so great a crime.”

11 His letter to the Allobroges’ council and people was read in the same manner. I offered him the chance to say whatever he wished about it. At first he refused. Later, once the evidence had all been set out and made known, he rose and asked the Gauls what business he had with them and why they had come to his house; he put the same questions to Volturcius. Calmly and briefly they answered: through whom they had come, how many visits they had made. They asked whether he had said nothing to them of the Sibylline prophecies. Then, suddenly driven out of his mind by guilt, he revealed the force of conscience. Though denial was still open to him, he abruptly confessed, against every expectation. So overwhelming was the crime, laid bare and caught in proof, that not merely his native ability and practiced eloquence—his constant strengths—deserted him, but even the brazen wickedness in which he surpassed all men.

12 Volturcius suddenly called for another letter to be produced and opened: the one, he said, that Lentulus had entrusted to him for Catiline. Lentulus, violently shaken, nonetheless acknowledged his seal and handwriting there too. No name appeared on the letter. Its words were these: “The man I have sent will tell you who I am. Act like a man and consider how far you have advanced. Look to what your situation now requires; see that you attach to yourself the help of everyone, even the lowest.” Gabinius was then brought in. He began with insolent answers; in the end he denied none of the Gauls’ charges.

13 To my mind, citizens, the letters, their seals, their handwriting, and finally each man’s confession gave utterly certain proof and evidence of the crime. More certain still were their complexions, their eyes, their faces, their silence. So stunned they stood, so fixed their gaze upon the ground, so furtive the glances they sometimes exchanged, that they seemed not men accused by others but their own accusers.

Chapter 6

With the evidence laid out and declared, citizens, I asked the Senate what it wished done for the republic’s highest interests. The leading men expressed the sternest, most courageous opinions, and the Senate followed without a dissenting voice. The decree has not yet been written out in full; I shall therefore tell you from memory what the Senate resolved.

14 First come thanks to me in the most generous language: my courage, judgment, and foresight have delivered the state from its gravest perils. Next the praetors Lucius Flaccus and Gaius Pomptinus receive praise, justly deserved, for their courageous and faithful service to me. My valiant colleague is praised as well, for excluding those involved in the conspiracy from his own counsels and the state’s. The Senate resolved that Publius Lentulus should be handed into custody after resigning the praetorship, and that Gaius Cethegus, Lucius Statilius, and Publius Gabinius, all present, should likewise be detained. The same decree applies to Lucius Cassius, who had claimed the direction of the city’s burning; to Marcus Ceparius, whose assignment, the evidence showed, was to incite the shepherds of Apulia; to Publius Furius, one of the settlers Lucius Sulla established at Faesulae; to Quintus Annius Chilo, who had continually acted with Furius in approaching the Allobroges; and to Publius Umbrenus, a freedman known to have first conducted the Gauls to Gabinius. Such was the Senate’s clemency, citizens: from this vast conspiracy, this great multitude of enemies within our country, it thought the punishment of nine utterly corrupt men would preserve the republic and allow the minds of the others to be cured.

15 A public thanksgiving to the immortal gods for their exceptional service was decreed in my name as well. Since Rome’s foundation, I am the first to receive this honor in civilian dress. The decree gives its reason in these words: “For freeing the city from fires, its citizens from slaughter, Italy from war.” Compare it with all other thanksgivings and one distinction appears: those marked good service to the republic; this alone marked the republic’s preservation. What needed doing first has also been done and completed. Publius Lentulus resigned his office. Disclosure of the evidence, his own admissions, and the Senate’s judgment had already stripped him not merely of a praetor’s rights but of a citizen’s. Nevertheless he resigned, so that punishing him as a private man might leave us free of religious scruple—a scruple which had not prevented that illustrious Gaius Marius from killing the praetor Gaius Glaucia, though no decree had named Glaucia specifically.

16 CHAPTER 7

Now, citizens, with the wicked commanders of this most criminal and dangerous war taken and held in your hands, you must consider all Catiline’s forces, hopes, and resources broken by the removal of the dangers facing Rome. When I drove Catiline out, this was what I foresaw: without him, neither Publius Lentulus’s sleepiness, nor Lucius Cassius’s fat, nor Gaius Cethegus’s frenzied rashness need frighten me. Alone among them he was formidable, and only while Rome’s walls contained him. He knew everything, commanded access to everyone; he could approach, probe, entice, and dared to do it. He had a mind fitted for crime, with speech and action never wanting to his purpose. For each task he already had his chosen, designated agent. Giving an order did not mean, to him, that the work was done. There was nothing he would not visit himself, meet in person, watch over, labor at. Cold, thirst, hunger—he could endure them all.

17 Had I not forced that man from plots within the state into banditry in a military camp—a man so fierce, so bold, so ready, so cunning, so watchful in crime, so tireless in desperate undertakings—I shall speak my mind, citizens: I could not easily have lifted this mountain of evil from your necks. He would not have appointed the Saturnalia for us, not announced the state’s day of destruction and doom so long beforehand, not allowed his own seal and letters to be seized as witnesses to manifest crime. Without him, the affair has unfolded so that no theft within a private house was ever discovered more openly than this conspiracy has been caught against the whole state. Had Catiline stayed in Rome until today, I would still have had to fight him, to put it at its mildest, though I met and resisted every plan of his while he remained. Never, with such an enemy inside the city, could we have delivered the republic from these enormous dangers in such peace, such quiet, such silence.

18 CHAPTER 8

Yet I have managed these affairs, citizens, in such a way that divine judgment and divine will seem to have guided their foresight and achievement. We may reach that belief by inference: governing such immense events scarcely seems a task human judgment could have borne. More than inference, the gods have shown themselves so near in giving help and rescue at this hour that they are almost visible to our eyes. Set aside the torches that appeared from the west in the night and the blazing heavens; set aside the bolts of lightning and the shaking earth. Set aside all the other signs—so numerous in our consulship that the immortals seemed to foretell what is happening now. There is one event I must not pass by, citizens, one I cannot leave unspoken. It is this.

19 You surely remember how, in the consulship of Cotta and Torquatus, lightning struck several things upon the Capitol: images of the gods were displaced, statues of men of old thrown down, the bronze tablets of the laws melted. Romulus, the founder himself, was struck too—you remember his gilded figure on the Capitol, a small suckling child, reaching toward the wolf’s teats. At that time diviners assembled from all Etruria. They said that murders, fires, the destruction of law, war within our country, the fall of the whole city and its empire were drawing near, unless the gods were appeased by every means and used their power almost to bend fate itself aside.

20 Following their answers, games were held for ten days, and nothing conducive to appeasing the gods was left undone. They also commanded that a larger image of Jupiter be made, placed upon a height, and turned eastward, the opposite of its former direction. Their hope, they said, was that, if the statue you now see looked toward sunrise, the Forum, and the Senate House, the secret plans against the city’s and empire’s safety would be brought to light, plainly visible to Rome’s people and Senate. Those consuls commissioned its erection. The work, however, dragged on so slowly that neither the preceding consuls nor we ourselves had put it in place before today.

21 CHAPTER 9

Who here can be so estranged from truth, so headlong, so bereft of reason as to deny that divine will and power govern everything before us, and above all this city? The diviners had answered that murder, arson, and the state’s destruction were being prepared—and by citizens. The enormity of those crimes then made the report incredible to some. Now you have found that wicked citizens not only conceived them but put them in train. And what of the immediacy of this event? Does it not seem Jupiter, Best and Greatest, ordered it by his will? This morning, while at my command the conspirators and their accusers were being led across the Forum to Concord’s temple, at that very instant the statue was raised. Once it stood turned toward you and the Senate, both you and the Senate saw exposed and illuminated every design against the safety of all.

22 How much greater, then, the hatred and punishment those men deserve! Their attempt was to carry deadly, wicked fires not only into your dwellings and homes, but into the gods’ temples and sanctuaries. Were I to say that I resisted them, I would claim too much for myself, beyond what could be borne. It was he, Jupiter himself, who resisted. He willed the Capitol safe, these temples safe, the entire city safe, every one of you safe. The gods were my guides when I adopted this resolve and purpose and reached this mighty evidence. Consider too the approach to the Allobroges: never could Lentulus and our other enemies at home have been mad enough to trust affairs of such moment and letters to unknown men and barbarians, had the gods not robbed such vast audacity of judgment. And consider the Gauls themselves. Their community was poorly pacified; theirs is the one people left who seem able, and not unwilling, to make war on Rome. Yet they disregarded the hope of power and the greatest rewards, freely offered them by patricians, and put your security before their own advancement. Do you not see a divine act in that, especially when they could have defeated us simply by silence, without a fight?

23 CHAPTER 10

Citizens, the decree for thanksgiving reaches every sacred couch. Keep its days in celebration, your wives and children beside you. The immortal gods have often received many honors that were just and owed to them; never, surely, were honors more just than these. You were snatched out of a most merciless and wretched death, snatched free with no slaughter, no spilling of blood, no army, no fighting. In civilian dress you gained the victory, and a single man in civilian dress—myself—was your leader and commander.

24 Think back, citizens, through all the conflicts within our state, those you know from hearing as well as those you have witnessed and remember. It was Lucius Sulla who crushed Publius Sulpicius, who banished Gaius Marius, the city’s guardian, and drove out or killed many other courageous men. Armed force enabled the consul Gnaeus Octavius to expel his colleague from Rome; around this very place lay overflowing piles of bodies and citizens’ blood. Cinna and Marius later won the upper hand. Illustrious men were killed then, and the lights of the state went dark. In time Sulla took vengeance for that victory’s cruelty—no need to recount the citizens lost, the catastrophe inflicted on the republic. Marcus Lepidus parted from that distinguished and valiant Quintus Catulus; the grief his own death brought the state was less than that brought by the deaths of others.

25 [And yet all those] conflicts aimed not at destroying the republic but at changing it. Those men did not wish for the republic to cease to exist, but to be its leaders while it stood; not for this city to burn, but for themselves to flourish in it. Yet all those conflicts, none of which sought the republic’s destruction, were settled not by the restoration of harmony but by the slaughter of citizens. In this war alone, however—the greatest and cruelest in human memory, a war such as no barbarous people has ever waged against its own nation—Lentulus, Catiline, Cethegus, and Cassius laid down this law: everyone who could remain safe if the city were safe was to be counted an enemy. In this war, citizens, I have acted so that all of you might be preserved unharmed. Your enemies thought only as many citizens would survive as escaped a boundless massacre, and only as much of the city as the flames could not reach; I have saved both city and citizens whole and unharmed.

26 CHAPTER 11

In return for deeds of such magnitude, citizens, I will ask no prize for courage, no mark of honor, no monument of praise, save remembrance of this day forever. Let all my triumphs, every adornment of honor, each memorial of glory and distinction of praise be stored and established within your hearts. Nothing mute can delight me, nothing silent, nothing of a kind that men less worthy might also obtain. Your memory will nourish my achievements, your speech enlarge them; written records will let them grow old and gather strength. I see that the city’s life and the memory of my consulship have been prolonged for the same span—a span I hope will be eternal. At one and the same time this republic has produced two citizens: one bounded your empire not by the regions of earth but of heaven, the other preserved that empire’s dwelling and seat.

27 CHAPTER 12

My achievements do not share the fortune and circumstances of those won in foreign wars. Their victors left the enemy dead or crushed; I must go on living with the men I have defeated and subdued. It falls to you, citizens, to ensure that deeds of mine never harm me, if others’ deeds rightly bring them advantage. I took care that the criminal, godless designs of those most reckless men could do you no injury. Your task is to keep their injury from me. And yet, citizens, in truth they can no longer harm me personally. Powerful protection among the good is secured to me forever. A great standing in the republic will be my silent defender always. Strong too is conscience: those who disregard its force will expose themselves when they seek to injure me.

28 My spirit is such, citizens, that I yield to no man’s recklessness; rather, I will always carry the challenge to every wicked man. Should every assault of the enemies within, once beaten back from you, turn upon me alone, you must then consider what position you wish men to hold hereafter who have faced all dangers and hostility for your safety. For myself, what further fruit can life bring me? In the honors you grant, in the glory courage brings, I see no higher place to which I would desire to climb.

29 I shall make certain, citizens, that in private life I uphold and lend distinction to my deeds as consul. Let the envy earned in saving the republic injure the envious, while it serves my glory. My conduct in public life will always remember my achievements and take care that they appear the work of courage, never accident. Citizens, night has come. Offer reverence to Jupiter there, who keeps watch over you and Rome, and go home. The danger has been repelled; nonetheless keep your dwellings under guard and watch as on the preceding night. I will take care, citizens, that you need not continue this burden and may enjoy peace without end.

1 CHAPTER 1

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.