Here who, O Romans can there be so obstinate against the
truth, so headstrong, so void of sense, as to deny that all these things which we see, and
especially this city, is governed by the divine authority and power of the immortal gods?
Forsooth, when this answer had been given, that massacre, and conflagration, and ruin was
prepared for the republic; and that, too, by profligate citizens, which, from the enormity of
the wickedness, appeared incredible to some people, you found that it had not only been planned
by wicked citizens, but had even been undertaken and commenced. And is not this fact so present
that it appears to have taken place by the express will of the good and mighty Jupiter, that,
when this day, early in the morning, both the conspirators and their accusers were being led by
my command through the forum to the Temple of Concord, at that very time the statue was being
erected? And when it was set up and turned towards you and towards the senate the senate and
you yourselves saw everything which had been planned against the universal safety brought to
light and made manifest.
And on this account they deserve even greater hatred and
greater punishment, for having attempted to apply their fatal and wicked fire, not only to your
houses and homes, but even to the shrines and temples of the Gods. And if I were to say that it
was I who resisted them, I should take too much to myself and ought not to be borne. He—he,
Jupiter, resisted them, He determined that the Capitol should be safe, he saved these temples,
he saved this city, he saved all of you. It is under the guidance of the immortal
gods, O Romans, that I have cherished the intention and desires which I have, and have arrived
at such undeniable proofs. Surely, that tampering with the Allobroges would never have taken
place, so important a matter would never have been so madly entrusted, by Lentulus and the rest
of our internal enemies, to strangers and foreigners, such letters would never have been
written, unless all prudence had been taken by the immortal gods from such terrible audacity.
What shall I say? That Gauls, men from a state scarcely at peace with us, the only nation
existing which seems both to be able to make war on the Roman people, and not to be unwilling
to do so,—that they should disregard the hope of empire and of the greatest success voluntarily
offered to them by patricians; and should prefer your safety to their own power—do you not
think that that was caused by divine interposition? especially when they could have destroyed
us, not by fighting, but by keeping silence.
Wherefore, O citizens, since a supplication has been decreed at all the altars, celebrate
those days with your wives and children; for many just and deserved honours have been often
paid to the immortal gods, but juster ones never. For you have been snatched from a most cruel
and miserable destruction, and you have been snatched from it without slaughter, without
bloodshed, without an army, without a battle. You have conquered in the garb of peace, with me
in the garb of peace for your only general and commander.
Remember, O citizens, all civil dissensions, and not only
those which you have heard of but these also which you yourselves remember and have seen.
Lucius Sulla crushed Publius SulpiciusSulpicius procured a law to be
passed for taking the command against Mithridates from Sulla and giving it to Marius; Sulla
came to Rome with his army and slew Sulpicius, when Marius fled to Africa. Sulla made Octavius
and Cinna consuls, who quarreled after he was gone, and Cinna went over to the party of
Marius, who returned to Rome. Lepidus and Catulus were consuls the year after the death of
Sulla, and they quarreled because Lepidus wished to rescind all the acts of Sulla. Lepidus was
defeated, fled to Sardinia, and died there.; he drove from the city Caius Marius the
guardian of this city; and of many other brave men some he drove from the city, and some he
murdered. Cnaeus Octavius the consul drove his colleague by force of arms out of the city; all
this place was crowded with heaps of carcasses and flowed with the blood of citizens;
afterwards Cinna and Marius got the upper hand; and then most illustrious men were put to
death, and the spirits of the state were extinguished. Afterwards Sulla avenged the cruelty of
this victory; it is needless to say with what a diminution of the citizens and with what
disasters to the republic Marcus Lepidus disagreed with that most eminent and brave man
Quintus, Catulus. His death did not cause as much grief to the republic as that of the others.
And these dissensions, O Romans, were such as concerned not
the destruction of the republic, but only a change in the constitution. They did not wish that
there should be no republic, but that they themselves should be the chief men in that which
existed; nor did they desire that the city should be burnt, but that they themselves should
flourish in it. And yet all those dissensions, none of which aimed at the destruction of the
republic, were such that they were to be terminated not by a reconciliation and concord, but
only by internecine war among the citizens. But in this war alone, the greatest and most cruel
in the memory of man,—a war such as even the countries of the barbarians have never waged with
their own tribes,—a war in which this law was laid down by Lentulus, and Catiline, and Cassius
and Cethegus that every one, who could live in safety as long as the city remained in safety,
should be considered as an enemy, in this war I have so managed matters, O Romans that you
should all be preserved in safety; and though your enemies had thought that only such a number
of the citizens would be left as had held out against an interminable massacre and only so much
of the city as the flames could not devour, I have preserved both the city and the citizens
unhurt and undiminished.
And for these exploits, important as they are, O Romans, I
ask from you no reward of virtue, no badge of honour, no monument of my glory, beyond the
everlasting recollection of this day. In your minds I wish all my triumphs, all my decorations
of honour; the monuments of my glory, the badges of my renown, to be stored and laid up.
Nothing voiceless can delight me, nothing silent,—nothing, in short, such as even those who are
less worthy can obtain. In your memory, O Romans, my name shall be cherished, in your
discourses it shall grow, in the monuments of your letters it shall grow old and strengthen;
and I feel assured that the same day which I hope will be for everlasting; will
be remembered for ever, so as to tend both to the safety of the city and the recollection of my
consulship; and that it will be remembered that there existed in this city at the same time two
citizens, one of whom limited the boundaries of your empire only by the regions of heaven, not
by those of the earth, while the other preserved the abode and home of that same empire.
But since the fortune and condition of those exploits which I have performed is not the same
with that of those men who have directed foreign wars—because I must live among those whom I
have defeated and subdued, they have left their enemies either slain or crushed,—it is your
business, O Romans, to take care, if their good deeds are a benefit to others, that mine shall
never be an injury to me. For that the wicked and profligate designs of audacious men shall not
be able to injure you, I have taken care; it is your business to take care that they do not
injure me. Although, O Romans, no injury can be done to me by them,—for there is a great
protection in the affection of all good men, which is procured for me for ever; there is great
dignity in the republic, which will always silently defend me; there is great power in
conscience, and those who neglect it when they desire to attack me will destroy themselves.
There is moreover that disposition in me, O Romans, that I not only will yield to the
audacity of no one, but that I always voluntarily attack the worthless. And if all the violence
of domestic enemies being warded off from you turns itself upon me alone, you will have to take
care, O Roman; in what condition you wish those men to be for the future, who for your safety
have exposed themselves to unpopularity and to all sorts of dangers. As for me, myself; what is
there which now can be gained by me for the enjoyment of life, especially when neither in
credit among you, nor in the glory of virtue, do I see any higher point to which I can be
desirous to climb?
That indeed I will take care of; O Romans, as a private man to uphold and embellish the
exploits which I have performed in my consulship: so that if there has been any unpopularity
incurred in preserving the republic, it may injure those who envy me, and may tend to my glory.
Lastly, I will so behave myself in the republic as always to remember what I have done, and to
take care that they shall appear to have been done through virtue, and not by chance. Do you, O
Romans, since it is now night ,worship that Jupiter, the guardian of this city and of
yourselves, and depart to your homes; and defend those homes, though the danger is now removed,
with guard and watch as you did last night, That you shall not have to do so long, and that you
shall enjoy perpetual tranquillity, shall, O Romans, be my care.