I say nothing of the republic, to which Sulla has always been most devoted.
Did he wish these friends of his, being such men as they are, so attached to him, by whom his
prosperity had been formerly adorned, by whom his adversity is now comforted and relieved, to
perish miserably, in order that he himself might be at liberty to pass a most miserable and
infamous existence in company with Lentulus, and Catiline, and Cethegus, with no other prospect
for the future but a disgraceful death? That suspicion is not consistent,—it is, I say, utterly
at variance with such habits, with such modesty, with such a life as his, with the man himself.
That sprang up, a perfectly unexampled sort of barbarity; it was an incredible and amazing
insanity. The foulness of that unheard of
Think not, O judges, that that violence and that attempt was the work of human beings; for no nation ever was so barbarous or so savage, as to have (I will not say so many, but even) one implacable enemy to his country. They were some savage and ferocious beasts, born of monsters, and clothed in human form. Look again and again, O judges; for there is nothing too violent to be said in such a cause as this. Look deeply and thoroughly into the minds of Catiline, Autronius, Cethegus, Lentulus, and the rest. What lusts you will find in these men, what crimes, what baseness, what audacity, what incredible insanity, what marks of wickedness, what traces of parricide, what heaps of enormous guilt! Out of the great diseases of the republic, diseases of long standing, which had been given over as hopeless, suddenly that violence broke out in such a way, that when it was put down and got rid of, the state might again be able to become convalescent and to be cured; for there is no one who thinks that if those pests remained in the republic, the Constitution could continue to exist any longer. Therefore they were some Furies who urged them on, not to complete their wickedness, but to atone to the republic for their guilt by their punishment.