The Historians' History of the World 05

“How long then, Catiline, how long will you abuse our patience? What, are you quite unmoved by the guard which keeps night-watch on the Palatine, by the patrols of the city, by the consternation of the people, by the rushing of all good citizens together, by this fortress-temple in which the senate is assembled, by the fear and horror of the senators themselves? Think you that all your schemes are not open to us as the day? Alas for our times! alas for our principles! The senate knows the plot; the consul sees it—and the man still lives! Lives! did I say? Aye, and comes into the midst of us, partakes of our public councils, observes and marks us, one by one, for slaughter. And yet we, the consuls, who have received the senators’ last decree for the preservation of the state—we into whose hands has been thrust the sword of Scipio, of Opimius, of Ahala, still suffer it to sleep in its scabbard! Yes, I still wait, I still delay; for I wish you not to perish till you cease to find a citizen so perverse as to excuse or defend you. Then, and not till then, the sword shall descend upon you. Meanwhile live, as you now live, tracked by enemies, surrounded by guards; all our eyes and ears shall be fixed upon you as they long have been, and watch you when you think not of it. Renounce then your designs; they are discovered and frustrated. Shall I tell you what they were? Remember how on the 20th of October I announced that Manlius was to rise on the 27th; was I wrong? That the 28th was fixed for the massacre; was it not averted only by my vigilance? On the 1st of November would you not have seized Præneste, and did you not find it apprised and guarded? I track your deeds, I follow your steps, I know your very thoughts.

“Let me tell you whither you repaired last night. Was it not to the house of Læca? There you met your accomplices, you assigned them each their places—who should remain at Rome, who with yourself should quit it; you marked out the quarters to be fired: you only lingered still a moment because I still lived. Then two Roman knights offered to rid you of that anxiety, and to kill me in my bed before the dawn of the morrow. All this I discovered, almost ere your meeting was dissolved: I doubled my guards, I shut the door against the wretches whom you sent so early to salute me; aye, the same wretches whom I had already designated to many as the men who were coming to murder me. You call upon me to impeach you; you say you will submit to the judgment of the senators; you will go into exile if it be their pleasure. No, I will not impeach you; I will not subject myself to the odium of driving you into banishment; though if you wait only for their judgment, does not their silence sufficiently declare their sentiments? But I invite, I exhort you to go forth from the city! Go where your armed bands await you! join Manlius, raise your ruffians, leave the company of honest citizens, make war against your country! Yet why do I invite you to do that which you have already determined to do; for which the day is fixed, and every disposition made?”

CICERO UPBRAIDING CATILINE IN THE SENATE

And then turning to the senators the orator explained the meaning of this strange address. He dared not bring the criminal to justice: he had too many friends even in the senate itself; too many timid people would declare his guilt unproved; too many jealous people would object to rigorous measures, and call them tyrannical and regal. But as soon as he should actually repair to Mallius’ camp, there would no longer be room for doubt. The consul pledged his word from that moment to lay the proof of the conspiracy before them, to crush the movement, and to chastise the guilty. And in order to assure them that he could do so, he pointed to the knights, who at his bidding were crowding the area and steps of the temple, and listening in violent agitation at the door, ready at his word to dart upon his victim, and tear him in pieces before the eyes of the senate.