What? when lately by the death of your former wife you had made your house empty and ready
for a new bridal, did you not even add another incredible wickedness to this wickedness? But I
pass that over, and willingly allow it to be buried in silence, that so horrible a crime may
not be seen to have existed in this city, and not to have been chastised. I pass over the ruin
of your fortune, which you know is hanging over you against the ides of the very next month; I
come to those things which relate not to the infamy of your private vices, not to your domestic
difficulties and baseness, but to the welfare of the republic and to the lives and safety of us
all.
Can the limit of this life, O Catiline, can the breath of
this atmosphere be pleasant to you, when you know that there is not one man of those here
present who is ignorant that you, on the last day of the year, when Lepidus and Tullus were
consuls, stood in the assembly armed; that you had prepared your hand for the slaughter of the
consuls and chief men of the state, and that no reason or fear of yours hindered your crime and
madness, but the fortune of the republic? And I say no more of these things, for they are not
unknown to every one. How often have you endeavoured to slay me, both as consul elect and as
actual consul? how many shots of yours, so aimed that they seemed impossible to be escaped,
have I avoided by some slight stooping aside, and some dodging, as it were, of my body? You
attempt nothing, you execute nothing, you devise nothing that call be kept hid from me at the
proper time; and yet you do not cease to attempt and to contrive.
How often already has that dagger of yours been wrested from your hands? how
often has it slipped through them by some chance, and dropped down? and yet you cannot any
longer do without it; and to what sacred mysteries it is consecrated and devoted by you I know
not, that you think it necessary to plunge it in the body of the consul.
But now, what is that life of yours that you are leading? For I will speak to you not so as
to seem influenced by the hatred I ought to feel, but by pity, nothing of which is due to you.
You came a little while ago into the senate in so numerous an assembly, who of so many friends
and connections of yours saluted you? If this in the memory of man never happened to any one
else, are you waiting for insults by word of mouth, when you are overwhelmed by the most
irresistible condemnation of silence? Is it nothing that at your arrival all those seats were
vacated? that all the men of consular rank, who had often been marked out by you for slaughter,
the very moment you sat down, left that part of the benches bare and vacant? With what feelings
do you think you ought to bear this?
On my honour, if my
slaves feared me as all your fellow-citizens fear you, I should think I must leave my house. Do
not you think you should leave the city? If I saw that I was even undeservedly so suspected and
bated by my fellow-citizens, I would rather flee from their sight than be gazed at by the
hostile eyes of every one. And do you, who, from the consciousness of your wickedness, know
that the hatred of all men is just and has been long due to you, hesitate to avoid the sight
and presence of those men whose minds and senses you offend? If your parents feared and hated
you, and if you could by no means pacify them, you would, I think, depart somewhere out of
their sight. Now, your country, which is the common parent of all of us, hates and fears you,
and has no other opinion of you, than that you are meditating parricide in her case; and will
you neither feel awe of her authority, nor deference for her judgment, nor fear of her power?
And she, O Catiline, thus pleads with you, and after a
manner silently speaks to you:—There has now for many years been no crime committed but by you;
no atrocity has taken place without you; you alone unpunished and unquestioned have murdered
the citizens, have harassed and plundered the allies; you alone have had power not only to
neglect all laws and investigations, but to overthrow and break through them. Your former
actions, though they ought not to have been borne, yet I did bear as well as I could; but now
that I should be wholly occupied with fear of you alone, that at every sound I should dread
Catiline, that no design should seem possible to be entertained against me which does not
proceed from your wickedness, this is no longer endurable. Depart, then, and deliver me from
this fear; that, if it be a just one, I may not be destroyed; if an imaginary one, that at
least I may at last cease to fear.
If, as I have said, your country were thus to address you, ought she not to obtain her
request, even if she were not able to enforce it? What shall I say of your having given
yourself into custody? what of your having said, for the sake of avoiding suspicion, that you
were willing to dwell in the house of Marcus Lepidus? And when you were not received by him,
you dared even to come to me, and begged me to keep you in my house; and when you had received
answer from me that I could not possibly be safe in the same house with you, when I considered
myself in great danger as long as we were in the same city, you came to Quintus Metellus, the
praetor, and being rejected by him, you passed on to your associate, that most excellent man,
Marcus Marcellus, who would be, I suppose you thought, most diligent in guarding you, most
sagacious hi suspecting you, and most bold in punishing you; but how far can we think that man
ought to be from bonds and imprisonment who has already judged himself deserving of being given
into custody?
Since, then, this is the case, do you hesitate, O Catiline, if you cannot remain here with
tranquillity, to depart to some distant laud, and to trust your life, saved from just and
deserved punishment, to flight and solitude? Make a motion, say you, to the senate, (for that
is what you demand) and if thus body votes that you ought to go into banishment, you say that
you will obey. I will not make such a motion, it is contrary to my principles, and yet I will
let you see what these men think of you. Be gone from the city, O Catiline, deliver the
republic from fear; depart into banishment, if that is the word you are waiting for. What now,
O Catiline? Do you not perceive, do you not see the silence of these men; they permit it, they
say nothing; why wait you for the authority of their words when you see their wishes in their
silence?
But had I said the same to this excellent young man,
Publius Sextius, or to that brave man, Marcus Marcellus, before this time the senate would
deservedly have laid violent hands on me, consul though I be, in this very temple. But to you,
Catiline, while they are quiet they approve, while they permit me to speak they vote, while
they are silent they are loud and eloquent. And not they alone, whose authority forsooth is
dear to you, though their lives are unimportant, but the Roman knights too, those most
honourable and excellent men, and the other virtuous citizens who are now surrounding the
senate, whose numbers you could see, whose desires you could know, and whose voices you a few
minutes ago could hear,—yes, whose very hands and weapons I have for some time been scarcely
able to keep off from you; but those, too, I will easily bring to attend you to the gates if
you leave these places you have been long desiring to lay waste.
And yet, why am I speaking? that anything may change your purpose? that you may ever amend
your life? that you may meditate flight or think of voluntary banishment? I wish the gods may
give you such a mind; though I see, if alarmed at my words you bring your mind to go into
banishment, what a storm of unpopularity hangs over me, if not at present, while the memory of
your wickedness is fresh, at all events hereafter. But it is worthwhile to incur that, as long
as that is but a private misfortune of my own, and is unconnected with the dangers of the
republic. But we cannot expect that you should be concerned at your own vices, that you should
fear the penalties of the laws, or that you should yield to the necessities of the republic,
for you are not, O Catiline, one whom either shame can recall from infamy, or fear from danger,
or reason from madness.
Wherefore, as I have said before, go forth, and if you to
make me, your enemy as you call me, unpopular, go straight into banishment. I shall scarcely be
able to endue all that will be said if you do so; I shall scarcely be able to support my load
of unpopularity if you do go into banishment at the command of the consul; but if you wish
serve my credit and reputation, go forth with your ill-omened band of profligates; betake
yourself to Manilius, rouse up the abandoned citizens, separate yourself from the good ones,
wage war against your country, exult in your impious banditti, so that you may not seem to have
been driven out by me and gone to strangers, but to have gone invited to your own
friends.
Though why should I invite you, by whom I know men have been already sent on to wait in arms
for you at the forum Aurelium; who I know has fixed and agreed with Manlius upon a settled day;
by whom I know that that silver eagle, which I trust will be ruinous and fatal to you and to
all your friends, and to which there was set up in your house a shrine as it were of your
crimes, has been already sent forward. Need I fear that you can long do without that which you
used to worship when going out to do murder, and from whose altars you have often transferred
your impious hand to the slaughter of citizens?
You will go at last where your unbridled and mad desire has been long hurrying you. And this
causes you no grief; but an incredible pleasure. Nature has formed you, desire has trained you,
fortune has preserved you for this insanity. Not only did you never desire quiet, but you never
even desired any war but a criminal one; you have collected a baud of profligates and worthless
men, abandoned not only by all fortune but even by hope.
Then what happiness will you enjoy with what delight will
you exult in what pleasure will you revel! when in so numerous a body of friends, you neither
hear nor see one good man. All the toils you have gone through have always pointed to this sort
of life; your lying on the ground not merely to lie in wait to gratify your unclean desires,
but even to accomplish crimes; your vigilance, not only when plotting against the sleep of
husbands, but also against the goods of your murdered victims, have all been preparations for
this. Now you have an opportunity of displaying your splendid endurance of hunger, of cold, of
want of everything; by which in a short time you will find yourself worn out.