Page images
PDF
EPUB

charged our duty to the State, if we but shun this madman's sword and fury!

2. Long since, O Catiline, ought the Consul to have ordered thee to execution, and brought upon thy owu head the ruin thou hast been meditating against others ! There was that virtue once in Rome, that a wicked citizen was held more execrable than the deadliest foe. We have a law still, Catiline, for thee. Think not that we are powerless, because forbearing. We have a decree, though it rests among our archives like a sword in its scabbard, a decree, by which thy life would be made to pay the forfeit of thy crimes. And, should I order thee to be instantly seized and put to death, I make just doubt whether all good men would not think t done rather too late than any man too cruelly. But, for good reasons, I will yet defer the blow long since deserved. Then will I doom thee, when no man is found, so lost, so wicked, nay, so like thyself, but shall confess that it was justly dealt. While there is one man that dares defend thee, live!

But thou shalt live

so beset, so surrounded, so scrutinized, by the vigilant guards that I have placed around thee, that thou shalt not stir a foot against the Republic, without my knowledge. There shall be eyes to detect thy slightest movement, and ears to catch thy wariest whisper, of which thou shalt not dream. The darkness of night shall not cover thy treason-the walls of privacy shall not stifle its voice. Baffled on all sides, thy most secret counsels clear as noon-day, what canst thou now have in view? Proceed, plot, conspire, as thou wilt; there is nothing you can contrive, nothing you can propose, nothing you

can attempt, which I shall not know, hear, and promptly understand. Thou shalt soon be made aware that I am even more active in providing for the preservation of the State than thou in plotting its destruction!

CATILINE EXPELLED.-Cicero.

Be

Ar length, Romans, we are rid of Catiline! We have driven him forth, drunk with fury, breathing mischief, threatening to revisit us with fire and sword. He is gone; he is fled; he has escaped; he has broken away. No longer, within the very walls of the city, shall he plot her ruin. We have forced him from secret plots into open rebellion. The bad citizen is now the avowed traitor. His flight is the confession of his treason! Would that his attendants had not been so few! speedy, ye companions of his dissolute pleasures; be speedy, and you may overtake him before night, on the Aurelian road. Let him not languish, deprived of your society. Haste to join the congenial crew that compose his army; his army, I say,-for who doubts that the army under Manlius expect Catiline for their leader? And such an army! Outcasts from honor, and fugitives from debt; gamblers and felons; miscreants, whose dreams are of rapine, murder, and conflagration.

2. Against these gallant troops of your adversary, prepare, O Romans, your garrisons and armies; and first to that maimed and battered gladiator oppose your Consuls and Generals; next, against that miserable out

charged our duty to the State, if we but shun this madman's sword and fury!

Think not that

2. Long since, O Catiline, ought the Consul to have ordered thee to execution, and brought upon thy own head the ruin thou hast been meditating against others! There was that virtue once in Rome, that a wicked citizen was held more execrable than the deadliest foe. We have a law still, Catiline, for thee. we are powerless, because forbearing. We have a decree, though it rests among our archives like a sword in its scabbard,—a decree, by which thy life would be made to pay the forfeit of thy crimes. And, should I order thee to be instantly seized and put to death, I make just doubt whether all good men would not think t done rather too late than any man too cruelly. But, for good reasons, I will yet defer the blow long since deserved. Then will I doom thee, when no man is found, so lost, so wicked, nay, so like thyself, but shall confess that it was justly dealt. While there is one man that dares defend thee, live! But thou shalt live so beset, so surrounded, so scrutinized, by the vigilant guards that I have placed around thee, that thou shalt not stir a foot against the Republic, without my knowledge. There shall be eyes to detect thy slightest movement, and ears to catch thy wariest whisper, of which thou shalt not dream. The darkness of night shall not cover thy treason--the walls of privacy shall not stifle its voice. Baffled on all sides, thy most secret counsels clear as noon-day, what canst thou now have in view? Proceed, plot, conspire, as thou wilt; there is nothing you can contrive, nothing you can propose, nothing you

can attempt, which I shall not know, hear, and promptly understand. Thou shalt soon be made aware that I am even more active in providing for the preservation of the State than thou in plotting its destruction!

[blocks in formation]

We

Ar length, Romans, we are rid of Catiline! have driven him forth, drunk with fury, breathing mischief, threatening to revisit us with fire and sword. He is gone; he is fled; he has escaped; he has broken away. No longer, within the very walls of the city, shall he plot her ruin. We have forced him from secret plots into open rebellion. The bad citizen is now the avowed traitor. His flight is the confession of his treason! Would that his attendants had not been so few! Be speedy, ye companions of his dissolute pleasures; be speedy, and you may overtake him before night, on the Aurelian road. Let him not languish, deprived of your society. Haste to join the congenial crew that compose his army; his army, I say,-for who doubts that the army under Manlius expect Catiline for their leader? And such an army! Outcasts from honor, and fugitives from debt; gamblers and felons; miscreants, whose dreams are of rapine, murder, and conflagration.

2. Against these gallant troops of your adversary, prepare, O Romans, your garrisons and armies; and first to that maimed and battered gladiator oppose your Consuls and Generals; next, against that miserable out

cast horde, lead forth the strength and flower of all Italy! On the one side chastity contends; on the other, wantonness; here purity, there pollution; here integrity, there treachery; here piety, there profaneness; here constancy, there rage; here honesty, there baseness; here continence, there lust; in short, equity, temperance, fortitude, prudence, struggle with iniquity, luxury, cowardice, rashness; every virtue with every vice; and, lastly, the contest lies between wellgrounded hope and absolute despair. In such a conflict, were even human aid to fail, would not the inmortal gods empower such conspicuous virtue to tri umph over such complicated vice?

VERRES DENOUNCED.-Cicero.

An opinion has long prevailed, Fathers, that, in public prosecutions, men of wealth, however clearly convicted, are always safe. This opinion, so injurious to your order, so detrimental to the State, it is now in your power to refute. A man is on trial before you who is rich, and who hopes his riches will compass his acquittal; but whose life and actions are his sufficient condemnation in the eyes of all candid men. I speak of Caius Verres, who, if he now receive not the sentence his crimes deserve, it shall not be through the lack of a criminal, or of a prosecutor; but through the failure of the ministers of justice to do their duty. Passing over the shameful irregularities of his youth, what does the quæstorship of Verres exhibit but one continued scene of villanies? The public treasure

« PreviousContinue »