zens, who guard the avenues of the senate; whose numbers you might have seen, whose sentiments you might have known, whose voices a little while ago you might have heard, and whose swords and hands I have for some time with difficulty restrained from your person: yet all these will I easily engage to attend you to the very gates, if you but consent to leave this city, which you have so long devoted to destruction.

But why do I talk, as if your resolution was to be shaken, or there was any room to hope you would reform! Can we expect you will ever think of flight, or entertain the design of going into banishment? May the immortal gods inspire you with that resolution! Though I clearly perceive, should my threats frighten you into exile, what a storm of envy will light upon my own head; if not at present, whilst the memory of thy crimes is fresh, yet surely in future times. But I little regard that thought, provided the calamity falls on myself alone, and is not attended with any danger to my country. But to feel the stings of remorse, to dread the rigour of the laws, to yield to the exigences of the state, are things not to be expected from thee. Thou, O Catiline, art none of those, whom shame reclaims from dishonourable pursuits, fear from danger, or reason from madness. Be gone then, as I have already often said: and if you would swell the measure of popular odium against me, for being, as you give out, your enemy, depart directly into banishment. By this step you will bring upon me an insupportable load of censure: nor shall I be able to sustain the weight of the public indignation, shouldst thou,

by order of the consul, retire into exile. But if you mean to advance my reputation and glory, march off with your abandoned crew of ruffians; repair to Manlius; rouse every desperate citizen to rebel; separate yourself from the worthy; declare war against your country; triumph in your impious depredations; that it may appear you were not forced by me into a foreign treason, but voluntarily joined your associates. But why should I urge you to this step, when I know you have already sent forward a body of armed men, to wait you at the Forum Aurelium? When I know you have concerted and fixed a day with Manlius? When I know you have sent off a silver eagle, that domestic shrine of your impieties, which I doubt not will bring ruin upon you and your accomplices? Can you absent yourself longer from an idol to which you had recourse in every bloody attempt, and from whose altars that inpious right-hand was frequently transferred to the murder of your countrymen?

Thus will you at length repair, whither your frantic and unbridled rage has long been hurrying you. Nor does this issue of thy plots give thee pain; but, on the contrary, fills thee with inexpressible delight. Nature has formed you, inclination trained you, and fate reserved you, for this desperate enterprise. You never took delight either in peace or war, unless when they were flagitious or destructive. You have got together a band of ruffians and profligates, not only utterly abandoned of fortune, but even without hope. With what pleasure will you enjoy yourself? how will you exult? how will you triumph? when

among so great a number of your associates, you shall neither hear nor see an honest man? To attain the enjoyment of such a life, have you exercised yourself in all those toils, which are emphatically styled yours: your lying on the ground, not only in pursuit of lewd amours, but of bold and hardy enterprises; your treacherous watchfulness, not only to take advantage of the husband's slumber, but to spoil the murdered citizen. Here may you exert all that boasted patience of hunger, cold, and want, by which, however, you will shortly find yourself undone. So much have I gained by excluding you from the consulship, that you can only attack your country as an exile, not oppress her as a consul; and your impious treason will be deemed the efforts, not of an enemy, but of a robber.

And now, conscript fathers, that I may obviate and remove a complaint, which my country might with some appearance of justice urge against me, attend diligently to what I am about to say, and treasure it up in your minds and hearts. For should my country, which is to me much dearer than life, should all Italy, should the whole state thus accost me: 'What are you about, Marcus Tullius? Will you suffer a man to escape out of Rome, whom you have discovered to be a public enemy? whom you see ready to enter upon a war against the state? whose arrival the conspirators wait with impatience, that they may put themselves under his conduct? the prime author of the treason; the contriver and manager of the revolt? the man who enlists all the slaves and ruined citizens he can find? will you suffer him, I

say, to escape; and appear as one rather sent against the city, than driven from it? will you not order him to be put in irons, to be dragged to execution, and to atone for his guilt by the most rigorous punishment? what restrains you on this occasion? is it the custom of our ancestors? But it is well known in this commonwealth, that even persons in a private station have often put pestilent citizens to death. Do the laws relating to the punishment of Roman citizens hold you in awe? Certainly traitors against their country can have no claim to the privileges of citizens. Are you afraid of the reproaches of posterity? A noble proof indeed of your gratitude to the Roman people, that you, a new man, who without any recommendation from your ancestors, have been raised by them through all the degrees of honour, to sovereign dignity, should, for the sake of any danger to yourself, neglect the care of the public safety. But if censure be that whereof you are afraid, think which is to be most apprehended, the censure incurred for having acted with firmness and courage, or that for having acted with sloth and pusillanimity? When Italy shall be laid desolate with war, her cities plundered, her dwellings on fire; can you then hope to escape the flames of public indignation?'

To this most sacred voice of my country, and to all those who blame me after the same manner, I shall make this short reply: That if I had thought it the most advisable to put Catiline to death, I would not have allowed that gladiator the use of one moment's life. For if, in former days, our greatest men, and most illustrious citi

zens, instead of sullying, have done honour to their memories, by the destruction of Saturninus, the Gracchi, Flaccus, and many others; there is no ground to fear, that by killing this parricide, any envy would lie upon me with posterity. Yet if the greatest was sure to befal me, it was always my persuasion, that envy acquired by virtue was really glory, not envy. But there are some of this very order, who do not either see the dangers which hang over us, or else dissemble what they see; who, by the softness of their votes, cherish Catiline's hopes, and add strength to the conspiracy by not believing it; whose authority influences many, not only of the wicked, but the weak; who, if I had punished this man as he deserved, would not have failed to charge me with acting cruelly and tyrannically. Now I am persuaded, that when he is once gone into Manlius's camp, whither he actually designs to go, none can be so silly, as not to see that there is a plot; none so wicked, as not to acknowledge it: whereas by taking off him alone, though this pestilence would be somewhat checked, it could not be suppressed: but when he has thrown himself into rebellion, and carried out his friends along with him, and drawn together the profligate and desperate from all parts of the empire, not only this ripened plague of the republic, but the very root and seed of all our evils, will be extirpated with him at once.

It is now a long time, conscript fathers, that we have trod amidst the dangers and machinations of this conspiracy: but I know not how it comes to pass, the full maturity of all those crimes, and of this long ripening rage and insolence, has now