THE ORATION.
Quousque tandem abutere—
CICERO.
The Senate was assembled in the great temple on the Palatine, built on the
spot where Jupiter, thence hailed as Stator, had stayed the tide of
flight, and sent the rallied Romans back to a glorious triumph.
A cohort was stationed on the brow of the hill, its spear-heads glancing
in the early sunshine.
The Roman knights, wearing their swords openly, and clad in their girded
tunics only, mustered around the steps which led to the colonnade and
doors of the temple, a voluntary guard to the good consul.
A mighty concourse had flowed together from all quarters of the city, and
stood in dense masses in all the neighboring streets, and in the area of
the temple, in hushed and anxious expectation.
The tribunes of the people, awed for once by the imminence of the peril,
forgot to be factious.
Within the mighty building, there was dead silence—silence more eloquent
than words.
For, to the wonder of all men, undismayed by detection, unrebuked by the
horror and hate which frowned on him from every brow, Catiline had assumed
his place on the benches of his order.
Not one, even of his most intimate associates, had dared to salute him;
not one, even of the conspirators, had dared to recognize the manifest
traitor.
As he assumed his place, the senators next to him had arisen and withdrawn
from the infamous vicinity, some of them even shaking their gowns, as if
to dissipate the contamination of his contact.
Alone he sat, therefore, with a wide vacant space around him—alone, in
that crowded house—alone, yet proud, unrebuked, undaunted.
The eyes of every man in the vast assembly were riveted in fear, or
hatred, or astonishment, on the set features and sullen scowling brow, of
the arch conspirator.
Thus sat they, thus they gazed for ten minutes’ space, and so deep was the
all-absorbing interest, that none observed the Consul, who had arisen to
his feet before the curule chair, until the great volume of his clear
sonorous voice rolled over them, like the burst of sudden thunder amid the
hush of nature which precedes it.
It was to no set form of words, to no premeditated speech, that he gave
utterance; nor did he in the usual form address the Conscript Fathers.
With his form drawn to its fullest height, his arm outstretched as if it
was about to launch the thunderbolt, he hurled his impassioned indignation
against the fearless culprit.
"Until how long, O Catiline, wilt thou abuse our patience? Until how long,
too, will thy frantic fury baffle us? Unto what extremity will thy
unbridled insolence display itself? Do the nocturnal guards upon the
Palatine nothing dismay you, nothing the watches through the city, nothing
the terrors of the people, nothing the concourse hitherward of all good
citizens, nothing this most secure place for the senate’s convocation,
nothing the eyes and faces of all these?" And at the words, he waved both
arms slowly around, pointing the features and expression of every senator,
filled with awe and aversion.
"Dost thou not feel that all thy plots are manifest? Not see that thy
conspiracy was grasped irresistibly, so soon as it was known thoroughly to
all these? Which of us dost thou imagine ignorant of what thou didst,
where thou wert, whom thou didst convoke, what resolution thou didst take
last night, and the night yet preceding? Oh! ye changed Times! Oh, ye
degenerate customs! The Senate comprehends these things, the Consul sees
them! Yet this man lives! Lives, did I say? Yea, indeed, comes into the
Senate, bears a part in the public councils, marks out with his eyes and
selects every one of us for slaughter. But we, strenuous brave men,
imagine that we do our duty to the state, so long as we escape the frenzy,
the daggers of that villain. Long since it had been right, Catiline, that
thou shouldst have been led to death by the Consul’s mandate—Long since
should that doom have been turned upon thyself, which thou hast been so
long devising for all of us here present. Do I err, saying this? or did
that most illustrious man, Publius Scipio, pontifex maximus, when in no
magisterial office, take off Tiberius Gracchus, for merely disturbing the
established order of the state? And shall we, Consuls, endure Catiline
aiming to devastate the world with massacre and conflagration? For I omit
to state, as too ancient precedents, how Caius Servilius Ahala slew with
his own hand Spurius Melius, when plotting revolution! There was, there
was, of old, that energy of virtue in this commonwealth, that brave men
hedged the traitorous citizen about with heavier penalties than the most
deadly foe! We hold a powerful and weighty decree of the Senate against
thee, O Catiline. Neither the counsel nor the sanction of this order have
been wanting to the republic. We, we, I say it openly, we Consuls are
wanting in our duty.
"The Senate decreed once, that Lucius Opimius, then Consul, should see
THAT THE REPUBLIC TOOK NO HARM; not one night intervened. Caius Gracchus
was slain on mere suspicions of sedition, the son of a most noble father,
most noble grandfather, most noble ancestry. Marcus Fulvius, a consular,
was slain with both his children. By a like decree of the Senate, the
charge of the republic was committed to Caius Marius and Lucius Valerius,
the Consuls—did the republic’s vengeance delay the death of Lucius
Saterninus, a tribune of the people, of Caius Servilius, a prætor, even a
single day? And yet, we Consuls, suffer the edge of this authority to be
blunted, until the twentieth day. For we have such a decree of the Senate,
but hidden in the scroll which contains it, as a sword undrawn in its
scabbard. By which decree it were right, O Catiline, that thou shouldst
have been slaughtered on the instant. Thou livest; and livest not to lay
aside, but to confirm and strengthen thine audacity. I desire, O Conscript
fathers, to _be_ merciful; I desire, too, in such jeopardy of the
republic, not to _seem_ culpably neglectful. Yet I condemn myself of
inability, of utter weakness. There is a camp in Italy! hostile to the
republic, in the defiles that open on Etruria! Daily the numbers of the
foe are increasing! And yet the general of that camp, the leader of that
foe, we see within the walls, aye, even in the Senate, day by day,
plotting some intestine blow against the state. Were I to order thee to be
arrested, to be slain now, O Catiline, I should have cause, I think, to
dread the reproaches of _all_ good citizens, for having stricken thee too
late, rather than that of _one_, for having stricken thee too severely.
And yet, that which should have been done long ago, I am not yet for a
certain reason persuaded to do now. Then—then at length—will I slay thee,
when there is not a man so base, so desperately wicked, so like to thee in
character, but he shall own thy slaying just. So long as there shall be
one man, who dares to defend thee, thou shalt live. And thou shalt live,
as now thou livest, beset on every side by numerous, and steady guards, so
that thou canst not even stir against the commonwealth. The eyes moreover,
and the ears of many, even as heretofore, shall spy thee out at unawares,
and mount guard on thee in private.
"For what is there, Catiline, which thou now canst expect more, if neither
night with all its darkness, could conceal thy unholy meetings, nor even
the most private house contain within its walls the voice of thy
conspiracy? If all thy deeds shine forth, burst into public view? Change
now that hideous purpose, take me along as thy adviser, forget thy schemes
of massacre, of conflagration. Thou art hemmed in on every side. Thy every
council is more clear to me than day; and these thou canst now review with
me. Dost thou remember, how I stated in the Senate, on the twelfth day
before the Calends of November,(1) that Caius Manlius, the satellite and
co-minister of thy audacity, would be in arms on a given day, which day
would be the sixth(2) before the Calends of November?—Did I err, Catiline,
not in the fact, so great as it was, so atrocious, so incredible, but,
what is much more wondrous, in the very day? Again I told thee in the
Senate, that thou hadst conspired to slay the first men of the state, on
the fifth(3) day before the Calends of November, when many leading men of
Rome quitted the city, not so much to preserve their lives, as to mar thy
councils. Canst thou deny that thou wert hemmed in on that day by my
guards, and hindered by my vigilance from stirring thy hand against the
state, when, frustrate by the departure of the rest, thou saidst that our
blood, ours who had remained behind, would satisfy thee? What? When thou
wert so confident of seizing Præneste, by nocturnal escalade, upon the
very(4) Calends of November, didst thou not feel that it was by my order
that colony was garrisoned, guarded, watched, impregnable?—Thou doest
nothing, plottest nothing, thinkest nothing which I shall not—I say
not—hear—but shall not see, shall not conspicuously comprehend.
"Review with me now, the transactions of the night before the last, so
shalt thou understand that I watch far more vigilantly for the safety,
than thou for the destruction of the state. I say that on that former
night,(5) thou didst go to the street of the Scythemakers, I will speak
plainly, to the house of Marcus Læca; that thou didst meet there many of
thy associates in crime and madness. Wilt thou dare to deny it? Why so
silent? If thou deniest, I will prove it. For I see some of those here,
here in the Senate, who were with thee. Oh! ye immortal Gods! in what
region of the earth do we dwell? in what city do we live? of what republic
are we citizens? Here! they are here, in the midst of us, Conscript
Fathers, here in this council, the most sacred, the most solemn of the
universal world, who are planning the slaughter of myself, the slaughter
of you all, planning the ruin of this city, and therein the ruin of the
world. I the consul, see these men, and ask their opinions on state
matters. Nay, those whom it were but justice to slaughter with the sword,
I refrain as yet from wounding with a word. Thou wert therefore in the
house of Læca, on that night, O Catiline. Thou didst allot the districts
of Italy; thou didst determine whither each one of thy followers should
set forth; thou didst choose whom thou wouldst lead along with thee, whom
leave behind; thou didst assign the wards of the city for conflagration;
thou didst assert that ere long thou wouldst go forth in person; thou
saidst there was but one cause why thou shouldst yet delay a little,
namely, that I was alive. Two Roman knights were found, who offered
themselves to liberate thee from that care, and promised that they would
butcher me, that very night, a little before daylight, in my own bed. Of
all these things I was aware, when your assembly was scarce yet broken up.
I strengthened my house, and guarded it with an unwonted garrison. I
refused admittance to those whom thou hadst sent to salute me, when they
arrived; even as I had predicted to many eminent men that they would
arrive, and at that very time.
"Since then these things stand thus, O Catiline, proceed as thou hast
begun; depart when thou wilt from the city; the gates are open; begone;
too long already have those camps of Manlius lacked their general. Lead
forth, with the morrow, all thy men—if not all, as many at least as thou
art able; purify the city of thy presence. Thou wilt discharge me from
great terror, so soon as a wall shall be interposed between thee and me.
Dwell among us thou canst now no longer. I will not endure, I will not
suffer, I will not permit it! Great thanks must be rendered to the
immortal Gods, and to this Stator Jove, especially, the ancient guardian
of this city, that we have escaped so many times already this plague, so
foul, so horrible, so fraught with ruin to the republic. Not often is the
highest weal of a state jeoparded in the person of a single individual. So
long as you plotted against me, merely as Consul elect, O Catiline, I
protected myself, not by public guards, but by private diligence. When at
the late Comitia, thou wouldst have murdered me, presiding as Consul in
the Field of Mars, with thy competitors, I checked thy nefarious plans, by
the protection and force of my friends, without exciting any public
tumult.—In a word, as often as thou hast thrust at me, myself have I
parried the blow, although I perceived clearly, that my fall was conjoined
with dread calamity to the republic. Now, now, thou dost strike openly at
the whole commonwealth, the dwellings of the city; dost summon the temples
of the Immortal Gods, the lives of all citizens, in a word, Italy herself,
to havoc and perdition. Wherefore—seeing that as yet, I dare not do what
should be my first duty, what is the ancient and peculiar usage of this
state, and in accordance with the discipline of our fathers—I will, at
least, do that which in respect to security is more lenient, in respect to
the common good, more useful. For should I command thee to be slain, the
surviving band of thy conspirators would settle down in the republic; but
if—as I have been long exhorting thee, thou wilt go forth, the vast and
pestilent contamination of thy comrades will be drained out of the city.
What is this, Catiline? Dost hesitate to do that, for my bidding, which of
thine own accord thou wert about doing? The Consul commands the enemy to
go forth from the state. Dost thou enquire of me, whether into exile? I do
not order, but, if thou wilt have my counsel, I advise it.
"For what is there, O Catiline, that can delight thee any longer in this
city, in which there is not one man, without thy band of desperadoes, who
does not fear, not one who does not hate thee?—What brand of domestic
turpitude is not burnt in upon thy life? What shame of private bearing
clings not to thee, for endless infamy? What scenes of impure lust, what
deeds of daring crime, what horrible pollution attaches not to thy whole
career?—To what young man, once entangled in the meshes of thy corruption,
hast thou not tendered the torch of licentiousness, or the steel of
murder? Must I say more? Even of late, when thou hadst rendered thy house
vacant for new nuptials, by the death of thy late wife, didst thou not
overtop that hideous crime, by a crime more incredible? which I pass over,
and permit willingly to rest in silence, lest it be known, that in this
state, guilt so enormous has existed, and has not been punished. I pass
over the ruin of thy fortunes, which all men know to be impending on the
next(6) Ides, I proceed to those things which pertain not to the private
infamy of thy career, not to thy domestic difficulties and baseness, but
to the supreme safety of the state, and to the life and welfare of us all.
Can the light of this life, the breath of this heaven, be grateful to
thee, Catiline, when thou art conscious that not one of these but knows
how thou didst stand armed in the comitium, on the day previous(7) to the
calends of January, when Lepidus and Tullus were the Consuls? That thou
hadst mustered a band of assassins to slay the Consuls, and the noblest of
the citizens? That no relenting of thy heart, no faltering from fear,
opposed thy guilt and frenzy, but the wonted good fortune of the
commonwealth? And now I pass from these things, for neither are these
crimes not known to all, nor have there not been many more recently
committed. How many times hast not thou thrust at me while elect, how many
times when Consul? How many thrusts of thine so nearly aimed, that they
appeared inevitable; have I not shunned by a slight diversion, and, as
they say of gladiators, by the movements of my body? Thou doest nothing,
attemptest nothing, plannest nothing, which can escape my knowledge, at
the moment, when I would know it. Yet thou wilt neither cease from
endeavoring nor from plotting. How many times already hath that dagger
been wrested from thy hand? how many times hath it fallen by chance, and
escaped thy grasp? Still thou canst not be deprived of it, more than an
instant’s space!—And yet, I know not with what unhallowed rites it has
been consecrated and devoted by thee, that thou shouldst deem it necessary
to flesh it in the body of a Consul.
"Now then, what life is this of thine? For I will now address thee, not so
that I may seem moved by that detestation which I feel toward thee, but by
compassion, no portion of which is thy due. But a moment since, thou didst
come into the Senate, and which one man, from so vast a concourse, from
thine own chosen and familiar friends, saluted thee? If this has befallen
no one, within the memory of man, wilt thou await loud contumely,
condemned already by the most severe sentence of this silence? What
wouldst thou have, when all those seats around thee were left vacant on
thy coming? When all those Consulars, whom thou so frequently hadst
designated unto slaughter, as soon as thou didst take thy seat, left all
that portion of the benches bare and vacant? With what spirit, in one
word, can thou deem this endurable? By Hercules! did my slaves so dread
me, as all thy fellow citizens dread thee, I should conceive it time for
leaving my own house—dost thou not hold it time to leave this city?—And if
I felt myself without just cause suspected, and odious to my countrymen, I
should choose rather to be beyond the reach of their vision, than to be
gazed upon by hostile eyes of all men. Dost thou hesitate, when conscious
of thine own crimes thou must acknowledge that the hate of all is just,
and due long ago—dost thou, I say, hesitate to avoid the presence and the
sight of those whose eyes and senses thine aspect every day is wounding?
If thine own parents feared and hated thee, and could by no means be
reconciled, thou wouldst, I presume, withdraw thyself some-whither beyond
the reach of their eyes—now thy country, which is the common parent of us
all, dreads and detests thee, and has passed judgment on thee long ago, as
meditating nothing but her parricide. Wilt thou now neither revere her
authority, nor obey her judgment, nor yet dread her violence? Since thus
she now deals with thee, Catiline, thus speaks to thee in silence.
"’No deed of infamy hath been done in these many years, unless through
thee—no deed of atrocity without thee—to thee alone, the murder of many
citizens, to thee alone the spoliation and oppression of our allies, hath
been free and unpunished. Thou hast been powerful not only to escape laws
and prosecutions, but openly to break through and overturn them. To these
things, though indeed intolerable, I have submitted as best I might—but it
can now no longer be endured that I should be in one eternal dread of thee
only—that Catiline, on what alarm soever, alone should be the source of
terror—that no treason against me can be imagined, such as should be
revolting to thy desperate criminality. Wherefore begone, and liberate me
from this terror, so that, if true, I may not be ruined; if false I may at
least shake with fear no longer.’
"If thy country should thus, as I have said, parley with thee, should she
not obtain what she demands, even if she lack force to compel it? What
more shall I say, when thou didst offer thyself to go into some private
custody? What, when to shun suspicion, thou didst profess thy willingness
to take up thy residence under the roof of Manius Lepidus? Refused by
whom, thou hadst audacity to come to me, and request that I would admit
thee to my house. And when thou didst receive from me this answer, that I
could not exist within the same house with that man, whose presence even
inside the same city walls, I esteemed vast peril to my life, thou didst
then go to the prætor Quintus Metellus; and, then, repulsed by him, to
Marcus Marcellus, thine own comrade, a virtuous man truly, one whom past
doubt thou didst deem likely to be most vigilant in guarding, most crafty
in suspecting, most strenuous in bringing thee to justice. And how far
shall that man be believed distant from deserving chains and a dungeon,
who judges himself to be worthy of safekeeping?—Since, then, these things
are so, dost hesitate, O Catiline, since here thou canst not tarry with an
equal mind, to depart for some other land, and give that life, rescued
from many just and deserved penalties, to solitude and exile? ’Lay the
matter,’ thou sayest, ’before the Senate,’ for that it is which thou
requirest, ’and if this order shall command thee into banishment, thou
wilt obey their bidding.’ I will not lay it before them—for to do so is
repugnant to my character, yet I will so act, that thou shalt clearly see
what these think of thee. Depart from the city, Catiline! Deliver the
state from terror! begone into banishment, if that be the word for which
thou tarriest!"
Then the great Orator paused once again, not to breathe, though the
vehement and uninterrupted torrent of his eloquence, might well have
required an interval of rest, but to give the confounded listener occasion
to note the feelings of the assembled Senate, perfectly in accordance with
his words.
It was but a moment, however, that he paused, and, that ended, again burst
out the thunderous weight of his magnificent invective.
"What means this, Catiline? Dost thou note these, dost thou observe their
silence? They permit my words, they are mute. Why dost thou wait that
confirmation of their words, which thou seest given already by their
silence? But had I spoken these same words to that admirable youth Publius
Sextius, or to that very valiant man, Marcus Marcellus, I tell thee that
this very Senate would have, already, in this very temple, laid violent
hands on me, the Consul, and that too most justly! But with regard to
thee, when quiescent they approve, when passive they decree, when mute
they cry aloud! Nor these alone, whose authority it seems is very dear,
whose life most cheap, in your eyes, but all those Roman knights do
likewise, most honorable and most worthy men, and all those other valiant
citizens, who stand about the Senate house, whose dense ranks thou couldst
see, whose zeal thou couldst discover, whose patriotic cries thou couldst
hear, but a little while ago; whose hands and weapons I have scarcely, for
a long time, restrained from thee, whom I will yet induce to escort thee
to the gates of Rome, if thou wilt leave this city, which thou hast sought
so long to devastate and ruin.
"And yet what say I? Can it be hoped that anything should ever bend thee?
that thou shouldst ever be reformed? that thou shouldst dream of any
flight? that thou shouldst contemplate any exile? Would, would indeed that
the immortal Gods might give thee such a purpose! And yet I perceive, if
astounded by my voice thou shouldst bend thy spirit to go into voluntary
exile, how vast a storm of odium would hang over me, if not at this
present time, when the memory of thy villanies is recent, at least from
the passions of posterity. But to me it is worth this sacrifice, so that
the storm burst on my individual head, and be connected with no perils to
the state. But that thou shouldst be moved by thine own vices, that thou
shouldst dread the penalties of the law, that thou shouldst yield to the
exigences of the republic, this indeed is not to be expected; for thou art
not such an one, O Catiline, that any sense of shame should ever recall
thee from infamy, any sense of fear from peril, any glimmering of reason
from insanity. Wherefore, as I have said many times already, go forth from
among us; and if thou wouldst stir up against me, as constantly thou
sayest, against me thine enemy a storm of enmity and odium, then begone
straightway into exile. Scarcely shall I have power to endure the clamors
of the world, scarcely shall I have power to sustain the burthen of that
odium, if thou wilt but go into voluntary banishment, now, at the consul’s
bidding. If, on the contrary, thou wouldst advance my glory and my
reputation, then go forth with thy lawless band of ruffians! Betake
thyself to Manlius! stir up the desperate citizens to arms! withdraw
thyself from all good men! levy war on thy country! exult in unhallowed
schemes of robbery and murder, so that thou shalt not pass for one driven
forth by my tyranny into the arms of strangers, but for one joining by
invitation his own friends and comrades. Yet why should I invite thee,
when I well know that thy confederates are sent forth already, who nigh
Forum Aurelium shall wait in arms for your arrival? When I well know that
thou hast already a day promised and appointed whereon to join the camp of
Manlius? When I well know that the silver eagle hath been prepared
already—the silver eagle which will, I trust, prove ruinous and fatal to
thee and all thine host, to which a shrine has been established in thine
own house, thy villanies its fitting incense? For how shalt thou endure
its absence any longer, thou who wert wont to adore it, setting forth to
sacrilege and slaughter, thou who so often hast upraised that impious
right hand of thine from its accursed altars to murder citizens of Rome?
"At length, then, at length, thou must go forth, whither long since thy
frantic and unbridled passions have impelled thee. Nor shall this war
against thy country vex or afflict thee. Nay, rather shall it bring to
thee a strange and unimaginable pleasure, for to this frantic career did
nature give thee birth, to this hath thine own inclination trained, to
this, fortune preserved thee—for never hast thou wished—I say not peaceful
leisure—but war itself, unless that war were sacrilegious. Thou hast drawn
together from the most infamous of wretches, wretches abandoned not only
by all fortune, but all hope, a bodyguard of desperadoes! Among these what
pleasure wilt thou not experience, in what bliss not exult, in what
raptures not madly revel, when thou shalt neither see nor hear one
virtuous man in such a concourse of thy comrades? To this, this mode of
life tended all those strenuous toils of thine, which are so widely talked
of—to lie on the bare ground, not lying in wait merely for some occasion
of adultery, but for some opportunity of daring crime! To watch through
the night, not plotting merely against the sleep of betrayed husbands, but
against the property of murdered victims! Now, then, thou hast a notable
occasion for displaying those illustrious qualities of thine, that
wonderful endurance of hunger, of cold, of destitution, by which ere long
thou shalt feel thyself undone, and ruined. This much, however, I did
accomplish, when I defeated thee in the comitia, that thou shouldst strike
at the republic as an exile, rather than ravage it as a consul; and that
the warfare, so villanously evoked by thee, should be called rather the
struggle of a base banditti, than the fair strife of warriors.
"Now, Conscript Fathers, that I may solemnly abjure and deprecate the just
reproaches of my country, listen, I pray you, earnestly to what I say, and
commit it deeply to your memories and minds. For if my country, who is
much dearer to me than my life, if all Italy, if the whole commonwealth
should thus expostulate with me, ’What dost thou, Marcus Tullius? Him,
whom thou hast proved to be my enemy, whom thou seest the future leader in
the war against me, whom thou knowest even now the expected general in the
camp of my foes—him, the author of every crime, the head of this
conspiracy, the summoner of insurgent slaves, and ruined citizens—him wilt
thou suffer to go forth, and in such guise, that he shall not be as one
banished from the walls, but rather as one let loose to war against the
city? Wilt thou not, then, command that he shall be led away to prison,
that he shall be hurried off to death, that he shall be visited with the
last torments of the law? What is it, that dissuades thee? Is it the
custom of thine ancestors? Not so—for many times in this republic have
men, even in private stations, inflicted death on traitors!—Is it the
laws, enacted, concerning the punishment of Roman citizens? Not so—for
never, in this city, have rebels against the commonwealth been suffered to
retain the rights of Citizens or Romans! Dost thou shrink from the odium
of posterity? If it be so, in truth, thou dost repay great gratitude unto
the Roman people, who hath elevated thee, a man known by thine own actions
only, commended by no ancestral glory, so rapidly, through all the grades
of honor, to this most high authority of consul; if in the fear of any
future odium, if in the dread of any present peril, thou dost neglect the
safety of the citizens! Again, if thou dost shrink from enmity, whether
dost deem most terrible, that, purchased by a severe and brave discharge
of duty, or that, by inability and shameful weakness? Or, once more, when
all Italy shall be waste with civil war, when her towns shall be
demolished, her houses blazing to the sky, dost fancy that thy good report
shall not be then consumed in the fierce glare of enmity and odium?’
"To these most solemn appeals of my country, and to the minds of those men
who think in likewise, I will now make brief answer. Could I have judged
it for the best, O Conscript Fathers, that Catiline should have been done
to death, then would I not have granted one hour’s tenure of existence to
that gladiator. For if the first of men, noblest of citizens, were graced,
not polluted, by the blood of Saturninus, and the Gracchi, and Flaccus,
and many more in olden time, there surely is no cause why I should
apprehend a burst of future odium for taking off this parricide of the
republic. Yet if such odium did inevitably impend above me, I have ever
been of this mind, that I regard that hatred which is earned by honorable
duty not as reproach, but glory! Yet there are some in this assembly, who
either do not see the perils which are imminent above us, or seeing deny
their eyesight. Some who have nursed the hopes of Catiline by moderate
decrees; and strengthened this conspiracy from its birth until now, by
disbelieving its existence—and many more there are, not of the wicked
only, but of the inexperienced, who, if I should do justice upon this man,
would raise a cry that I had dealt with him cruelly, and as a regal
tyrant.
"Now I am well assured that, if he once arrive, whither he means to go, at
the camp of Manlius, there will be none so blind as not to see the reality
of this conspiracy, none so wicked as to deny it. But on the other hand,
were this man slain, alone, I perceive that this ruin of the state might
indeed be repressed for a season, but could not be suppressed for
ever—while, if he cast himself forth, and lead his comrades with him, and
gather to his host all his disbanded desperate outlaws, not only will this
full grown pestilence of Rome be utterly extinguished and abolished, but
the very seed and germ of all evil will be extirpated for ever.
"For it is a long time, O Conscript Fathers, that we have been dwelling
amid the perils and stratagems of this conspiracy. And I know not how it
is that the ripeness of all crime, the maturity of ancient guilt and
frenzy, hath burst to light at once during my consulship. But, this I
know, that if from so vast a horde of assassins and banditti this man
alone be taken off, we may perchance be relieved for some brief space,
from apprehension and dismay, but the peril itself will strike inward, and
settle down into the veins and vitals of the commonwealth. As oftentimes,
men laboring under some dread disease, if, while tossing in feverish heat,
they drink cold water, will seem indeed to be relieved for some brief
space, but are thereafter much more seriously and perilously afflicted, so
will this ulcer, which exists in the republic, if relieved by the cutting
off this man, grow but the more inveterate, the others left alive.
Wherefore, O Conscript Fathers, let the wicked withdraw themselves, let
them retire from among the good, let them herd together in one place, let
them, in one word, as often I have said before, be divided from us by the
city wall. Let them cease to plot against the consul in his own house, to
stand about the tribunal of the city prætor deterring him from justice, to
beset even the senate house with swords, to prepare blazing brands and
fiery arrows for the conflagration of the city. Let it, in one word, be
borne as an inscription upon the brow of every citizen, what are his
sentiments toward the republic. This I can promise you, O Conscript
Fathers, that there shall be such diligence in us consuls, such valor in
the Roman knights, such unanimity in all good citizens, that you shall
see, Catiline once departed, all that is secret exposed, all that is dark
brought to light, all that is dangerous put down, all that is guilty
punished. Under these omens, Catiline, to the eternal welfare of the
state, to thine own ruin and destruction, to the perdition of all those
who have linked themselves with thee in this league of infamy and
parricide, go forth to thine atrocious and sacrilegious warfare! And do
thou Jove, who wert consecrated by Romulus under the same auspices with
this city, whom we truly hail as the Stator, and supporter of this city,
of this empire, chase forth this man, and this man’s associates, from
thine own altars, and from the shrines of other Gods, from the roofs and
hearths of the city, from the lives and fortunes of the citizens, and
consummate the solemn ruin of all enemies of the good, all foes of their
country, all assassins of Italy, linked in one league of guilt and bond of
infamy, living or dead, by thine eternal torments."
The dread voice ceased—the terrible oration ended.
And instantly with flushed cheek, and glaring eye, and the foam on his
gnashed teeth, fierce, energetical, undaunted, Catiline sprang to his feet
to reply.
But a deep solemn murmur rose on all sides, deepening, swelling into a
vast overwhelming conclamation—"Down with the Traitor—away with the
Parricide!"
But unchecked by this awful demonstration of the popular mind, he still
raised his voice to its highest pitch, defying all, both gods and men,
till again it was drowned by that appalling torrent of scorn and
imprecation.
Then, with a furious gesture, and a yelling voice that rose clear above
all the din and clamor,
"Since," he exclaimed, "my enemies will drive me headlong to destruction I
will extinguish the conflagration which consumes me in their universal
ruin!"
And pursued by the yells, and groans, and curses of that great concourse,
and hunted by wilder furies within his own dark soul, the baffled Traitor
rushed precipitately homeward.