(63 B.C.)
Born in 106 B.C., died in 43; served in the Social Warin 89; Questor in Sicily
in 75; Edile in 69; Pretor in 66; Consul during the Catiline conspiracy; banished
in 58; Proconsul of Cilicia in 51-50;with the Pompeians in 49; proscribed by
the Second Triumvirate, and slain in 43; of his orations fifty-seven have been
preserved.
AT length, O Romans, we have dismissed
from the city or driven out or, when he was departing of his own accord, we
have pursued with words Lucius Catiline, mad with audacity, breathing
wickedness, impiously planning mischief to his country, threatening fire and
sword to you and to the city. He has gone, he has departed, he has disappeared,
he has rushed out. 1 No injury will now be prepared against these walls
within the walls themselves by that monster and prodigy of wickedness. And we
have, without controversy, defeated him, the sole general of this domestic war.
For now that dagger will no longer hover about our sides; we shall not be
afraid in the campus, in the forum, in the senate-house, aye, and within our own private walls. He was moved
from his place when he was driven from the city. Now we shall openly carry on a
regular war with an enemy without hindrance. Beyond all question we ruin the
man; we have defeated him splendidly when we have driven him from secret
treachery into open warfare. But that he has not taken with him his sword red
with blood as he intended, that he has
left us alive, that we wrested the
weapon from his hands, that he has left
the citizens safe and the city standing, what great and overwhelming grief must
you think that this is to him! Now he lies prostrate, O Romans, and feels
himself stricken down and abject, and often casts back his eyes toward this
city, which he mourns over as snatched from his jaws, but which seems to me to
rejoice at having vomited forth such a pest, and cast it out of doors.
But if there be any one of that disposition which all men should have, who yet
blames me greatly for the very thing in which my speech exults and triumphs namely, that I did not arrest so capital mortal an
enemy rather than let him go that is
not my fault, O citizens, but the fault of the times. Lucius Catiline ought to
have been visited with the severest punishment, and to have been put to death
long since; and both the customs of our ancestors, and the rigor of my office,
and the republic, demanded this of me; but how many, think you, were there who
did not believe what I reported? How many who out of stupidity did not think
so? How many who even defended him? How many who, out of their own depravity,
favored him? If, in truth, I had thought that, if he were removed, all danger
would be removed from you, I would long since have cut off Lucius Catiline, had
it been at the risk. Not only of my popularity, but even of my life.
But as I saw that, since the matter was not even then proved to all of you, if
I had punished him with death, as he had deserved, I should be borne down by
unpopularity, and so be unable to follow up his accomplices, I brought the
business on to this point that you might be able to combat openly when you saw
the enemy without disguise. But how exceedingly I think this enemy to be feared
now that he is out of doors, you may see from this, that I am vexed even that he has gone from the city
with but a small retinue. I wish he had taken with him all his forces. He has
taken with him Tongillus, with whom he had been said to have a criminal
intimacy, and Publicius, and Munatius, whose debts contracted in taverns could
cause no great disquietude to the republic. He has left behind him others you all know what men they are, how overwhelmed with
debt, how powerful, how noble.
Therefore, with our Gallic legions, and with the levies which Quintus Metellus
has raised in the Picenian and Gallic territory, and with these troops which
are every day being got ready by us, I thoroughly despise that army composed of
desperate old men, of clownish profligates, and uneducated spendthrifts: of
those who have preferred to desert their bail rather than that army, and which
will fall to pieces if I show them not the battle array of our army, but an
edict of the pretor. I wish he had taken with him those soldiers of his, whom I
see hovering about the forum, standing about the senate-house, even coming into
the senate, who shine with ointment, who glitter in purple; and if they remain
here, remember that that army is not so much to be feared by us as these men
who have deserted the army. And they are the more to be feared, because they
are aware that I know what they are thinking of, and yet they are not
influenced by it.
I know to whom Apulia has been allotted, who has
What I have been waiting for, that I have gained namely, that you should all see that a conspiracy has
been openly formed against the republic; unless, indeed, there be any one who
thinks that those who are like Catiline do not agree with Catiline. There is
not any longer room for lenity; the business itself demands severity. One
thing, even now, I will grant let them
depart, let them be gone. Let them not suffer the unhappy Catiline to pine away
for want of them. I will tell them the road. He went by the Aurelian road. If
they make haste, they will catch him by the evening. O happy republic, if it
can cast forth these dregs of there public! Even now, when Catiline alone is
got rid of, the republic seems to me relieved and refreshed; for what evil or
wickedness can be devised or imagined which he did not conceive? What prisoner,
what gladiator, what thief, what assassin, what parricide, what forger of
wills, what cheat, what debauchee, what spendthrift, what adulterer, what
abandoned woman, what corrupter of youth, what profligate, what scoundrel can
be found in all Italy, who does not avow that he has been on terms of intimacy
with Catiline? What murder has been committed for years without him? What
nefarious act of infamy that has not been done by him?
But in what other man were there ever so many allurements for youth as in him,
who both indulged in infamous love for others, and encouraged their infamous
affections for himself, promising to some enjoyment of their lust, to others
the death of their parents, and not only instigating them to iniquity, but even
assisting them in it. But now, how suddenly had he collected, not only out of
the city, but even out of the country, a number of abandoned men? No one, not
only at
And, that you may understand the diversity of his pursuits and the variety of
his designs, there was no one in any school of gladiators, at all inclined to
audacity, who does not avow himself to be an intimate friend of Catiline no one on the stage, at all of a fickle and worthless
disposition, who does not profess himself his companion. And he, trained in the
practise of insult and wickedness, in enduring cold, and hunger, and thirst,
and watching, was called a brave man by those fellows, while all the appliances
of industry and instruments of virtue were devoted to lust and atrocity.
But if his companions follow him, if
the infamous herd of desperate men depart from the city, oh! happy shall we be,
fortunate will be the republic, illustrious will be the renown of my
consulship. For theirs is no ordinary insolence, no common and endurable audacity. They think of
nothing but slaughter, conflagration and rapine. They have dissipated their
patrimonies, they have squandered their fortunes. Money has long failed them,
and now credit begins to fail; but the same desires remain which they had in
their time of abundance. But if in their drinking and gambling parties they
were content with feasts and harlots, they would be in a hopeless state indeed;
but yet they might be endured. But who can bear this, that indolent men should
plot against the bravest, drunkards
against the sober, men asleep against
men awake, men lying at feasts,
embracing abandoned women, languid with wine, crammed with food, crowned with
chaplets, reeking with ointments, worn out with lust, belch out in their
discourse the murder of all good men, and the conflagration of the city?
But I am confident that some fate is hanging over these men, and that the
punishment long since due to their iniquity, and worthlessness, and wickedness,
and lust, is either visibly at hand or at least rapidly approaching. And if my
consulship shall have removed, since it can not cure them, it will have added,
not some brief span, but many ages of existence to the republic. For there is
no nation for us to fear, no king who
can make war on the Roman people. All foreign affairs are tranquilized, both by
land and sea, by the valor of one man. Domestic war alone remains. The only
plots against us are within our own walls, the danger is with in, the enemy
is within. We must war with luxury, with madness, with wickedness. For this
war, O citizens, I offer myself as the general. I take on myself the enmity of
profligate men. What can be cured, I will cure, by whatever means it may be
possible. What must be cut away, I will not suffer to spread, to the ruin of
the republic. Let them depart, or let them stay quiet; or if they remain in the
city and in the same disposition as at present, let them expect what they deserve.
But there are men, O Romans, who say that Catiline has been driven by me into
banishment. But if I could do so by a word, I would drive out those also who
say so. Forsooth, that timid, that excessively bashful man could not bear the
voice of the consul; as soon as he was ordered to go into banishment, he
obeyed, he was quiet. Yesterday, when I had been all but murdered at my own
house, I convoked the senate in the
On this I, that violent consul, who drive citizens into exile by a word, asked
of Catiline whether he had been at the nocturnal meeting at Marcus Leccas or not; when that most audacious man, convicted of
his own conscience, was at first silent. I related all the other circumstances;
I described what he had done that night, where he had been, what he had
arranged for the next night, how the plan of the whole war had been laid down
by him. When he hesitated, when he was convicted, I asked why he hesitated to
go whither he had been long preparing to go; when I knew that arms, that the
axes, the fasces, and trumpets, and military standards, and that silver eagle
to which he had made a shrine in his own house, had been sent on, did I drive
him into exile who I knew had already entered upon war? I suppose Manlius, that
centurion who has pitched his camp in the Fζsulan district, has proclaimed war
against the Roman people in his own name; and that camp is not now waiting for
Catiline as its general, and he, driven forsooth into exile, will go to
Oh, the hard lot of those, not only of those who govern, but even of those who
save the republic! Now, if Lucius Catiline, hemmed in and rendered powerless by
my counsels, by my toils, by my dangers, should on a sudden become alarmed,
should change his designs, should desert his friends, should abandon his design
of making war, should change his path from this course of wickedness and war,
and betake himself to flight and exile, he will not be said to have been
deprived by me of the arms of his audacity, to have been astounded and
terrified by my diligence, to have been driven from his hope and from his
enterprise, but, uncondemned, and innocent, to have been driven into banishment
by the consul by threats and violence; and there will be some who will seek to
have him thought not worthless but unfortunate, and me considered not a most
active consul, but a most cruel tyrant. I am not unwilling, O Romans, to endure
this storm of false and unjust popularity as long as the danger of this
horrible and nefarious war is warded off from you. Let him be said to be
banished by me as long as he goes into banishment; but, believe me, he will not
go. I will never ask of the immortal gods, O Romans, for the sake of lightening
my own unpopularity, for you to hear that Lucius Catiline is leading an army of
enemies, and is hovering about in arms; but yet in three days you will hear it.
And I much more fear that it will be objected to me someday or other, that I
have let him escape, rather than that I have banished him. But when there are
men who say he has been banished because he has gone away, what would these men
say if he had been put to death?
But those men who keep saying that Catiline is going to Marseilles do not
complain of this so much as they fear it; for there is not one of them so
inclined to pity, as not to prefer that he should go to Manlius rather than to
Marseilles. But he, if he had never before planned what he is now doing, yet
would rather be slain while living as a bandit, than live as an exile; but now,
when nothing has happened to him contrary to his own wish and design except, indeed, that he has left Rome while we are
alive let us wish rather that he may go
into exile than complain of it.
But why are we speaking so long about one enemy; and about that enemy who now
avows that he is one; and whom I now do not fear, because, as I have always
wished, a wall is between us; and are saying nothing about those who dissemble,
who remain at Rome, who are among us? Whom, indeed, if it were by any means
possible, I should be anxious not so much to chastise as to cure, and to make
friendly to the republic; nor, if they will listen to me, do I quite know why
that may not be. For I will tell you, O Romans, of what classes of men those
forces are made up, and then, if I can, I will apply to each the medicine of my
advice and persuasion.
There is one class of them, who, with enormous debts, have still greater
possessions, and who can by no means be detached from their affection to them.
Of these men the appearance is most respectable, for they are wealthy, but
their intention and their cause are most shameless. Will you be rich in lands,
in houses, in money, in slaves, in all things, and yet hesitate to diminish
your possessions to add to your credit? What are you expecting? War? What! in
the devastation of all things, do you believe that your own possessions will be
held sacred? do you expect an abolition of debts? They are mistaken who expect
that from Catiline. There may be schedules made out, owing to my exertions, but
they will be only catalogs of sale. Nor can those who have possessions be safe
by any other means; and if they had been willing to adopt this plan earlier,
and not, as is very foolish, to struggle on against usury with the profits of
their farms, we should have them now richer and better citizens. But I think
these men are the least of all to be dreaded, because they can either be
persuaded to abandon their opinions, or if they cling to them, they seem to me
more likely to form wishes against the republic than to bear arms against it.
There is another class of them, who, altho they are harassed by debt, yet are
expecting supreme power; they wish to become masters. They think that when the
republic is in confusion they may gain those honors which they despair of when
it is in tranquillity. And they must, I think, be told the same as every one
else to despair of obtaining what they
are aiming at; that in the first place, I myself am watchful for, am present
to, am providing for the republic. Besides that, there is a high spirit in the
virtuous citizens, great unanimity, great numbers, and also a large body of
troops. Above all that, the immortal gods will stand by and bring aid to this
invincible nation, this most illustrious empire, this most beautiful city,
against such wicked violence. And if they had already got that which they with
the greatest madness wish for, do they think that in the ashes of the city and
blood of the citizens, which in their wicked and infamous hearts they desire,
they will become consuls and dictators and even kings? Do they not see that
they are wishing for that which, if they were to obtain it, must be given up to
some fugitive slave, or to some gladiator? 17
There is a third class, already touched by age, but still vigorous
from constant exercise; of which class is Manlius himself, whom Catiline is now
succeeding. These are men of those colonies which Sulla established at Fζesulζ,
which I know to be composed, on the whole, of excellent citizens and brave men;
but yet these are colonists, who, from becoming possessed of unexpected and
sudden wealth, boast themselves extravagantly and insolently; these men, while
they build like rich men, while they delight in farms, in litters, in vast
families of slaves, in luxurious banquets, have incurred such great debts,
that, if they would be saved, they must raise Sulla from the dead; and they
have even excited some countrymen, poor and needy men, to entertain the same
hopes of plunder as themselves. And all these men, O Romans, I place in the
same class of robbers and banditti. But, I warn them, let them cease to be mad,
and to think of proscriptions and dictatorships; for such a horror of these
times is ingrained into the city, that not even men, but it seems to me that
even the very cattle would refuse to bear them again.
There is a fourth class, various, promiscuous and turbulent; who indeed are
even now overwhelmed; who will never recover themselves; who, partly from
indolence, partly from managing their affairs badly, partly from extravagance,
are embarrassed by old debts; and worn out with bail bonds, and judgments and
seizures of their goods, are said to be betaking themselves in numbers to that
camp both from the city and the country. These men I think not so much active
soldiers as lazy insolvents; who, if they can not stand at first, may fall, but
fall so, that not only the city but even their nearest neighbors know nothing
of it. For I do not understand why, if they can not live with honor, they
should wish to die shamefully; or why they think they shall perish with less
pain in a crowd, than if they perish by themselves.
There is a fifth class, of patricides, assassins, in short of all infamous
characters, whom I do not wish to recall from Catiline, and indeed they can not
be separated from him. Let them perish in their wicked war, since they are so
numerous that a prison can not contain them.
There is a last class, last not only in number but in the sort of men and in
their way of life: the especial bodyguard of Catiline, of his levying; aye, the
friends of his embraces and of his bosom, whom you see with carefully combed
hair, glossy, beardless, or with well-trimmed beards; with tunics with sleeves,
or reaching to the ankles, and clothed with veils, not with robes; all the
industry of whose life, all the labor of whose watchfulness, is expended in
suppers lasting till daybreak.
In these bands are all the gamblers, all the adulterers, all the unclean and
shameless citizens. These boys, so witty and delicate, have learned not only to
love and be loved, not only to sing and to dance, but also to brandish daggers
and to administer poisons; and unless they are driven out, unless they die,
even should Catiline die, I warn you that the
Array now, O Romans, against these splendid troops of Catiline, your guards and
your armies; and first of all oppose to that worn-out and wounded gladiator
your consuls and generals; then against that banished and enfeebled troop of
ruined men lead out the flower and strength of all Italy; instantly the cities
of the colonies and municipalities will match the rustic mounds of Catiline;
and I will not condescend to compare the rest of your troops and equipments and
guards with the want and destitution of that highwayman. But if, omitting all
these things in which we are rich and of which he is destitute, the senate, the
Roman knights, the people, the city, the treasury, the revenues, all Italy, all
the provinces, foreign nations, if, I
say, omitting all these things, we choose to compare the causes themselves
which are opposed to one another, we may understand from that alone how
thoroughly prostrate they are. For on the one side are fighting modesty, on the
other wantonness; on the one chastity, on the other uncleanness; on the one
honesty, on the other fraud; on the one piety, on the other wickedness; on the
one consistency, on the other insanity; on the one honor, on the other
baseness; on the one continence, on the other lust; in short, equity,
temperance, fortitude, prudence, all the virtues contend against iniquity with
luxury, against indolence, against rashness, against all the vices; lastly,
abundance contends against destitution, good plans against baffled designs,
wisdom against madness, well-founded hope against universal despair. In a
contest and war of this sort, even if the zeal of men were to fail, will not
the immortal gods compel such numerous and excessive vices to be defeated by these
most eminent virtues?
And as this is the case, O Romans, do ye as I have said before, defend your
house with guards and vigilance. I have taken care and made arrangements that
there shall be sufficient protection for the city without distressing you and
without any tumult. All the colonists and citizens of your municipal towns,
being informed by me of this nocturnally of Catiline, will easily defend their
cities and territories; the gladiators which he thought would be his most
numerous and most trusty band, altho they are better disposed than part of the
patricians, will be held in check by our power. Quintus Metellus, whom I,
making provision for this, sent on to the Gallic and Picenian territory, will
either overwhelm the man, or will prevent all his motions and attempts; but
with respect to the arrangements of all other matters, and maturing and acting
on our plans, we shall consult the senate, which, as you are aware, is
convened.
Now once more I wish those who have remained in the city, and who, contrary to
the safety of the city and of all of you, have been left in the city by
Catiline, altho they are enemies, yet because they were born citizens, to be
warned again and again by me. If my lenity has appeared to any one too remiss,
it has been only waiting that that might break out which was lying hid. As to
the future, I can not now forget that this is my country, that I am the consul
of these citizens, that I must either live with them, or die for them. There is
no guard at the gate, no one plotting against their path; if any one wishes to
go, he can provide for himself; but if any one stirs in the city, and if I
detect not only any action, but any attempt or design against the country, he
shall feel that there are in this city vigilant consuls, eminent magistrates, a
brave senate, arms, and prisons; which our ancestors appointed as the avengers
of nefarious and convicted crimes.
And all this shall be so done, O Romans, that affairs of the greatest
importance shall be transacted with the least possible disturbance; the
greatest dangers shall be avoided without any tumult; an internal civil war the
most cruel and terrible in the memory of man, shall be put an end to by me
alone in the robe of peace acting as general and commander-in-chief. And this I
will so arrange, O Romans, that if it can be by any means managed, even the
most worthless man shall not suffer the punishment of his crimes in this city.
But if the violence of open audacity, if danger impending over the republic
drives, me of necessity from this merciful disposition, at all events I will
manage this, which seems scarcely even to be hoped for in so great and so
treacherous a war, that no good man shall fall, and that you may all be saved
by the punishment of a few.
And I promise you this, O Romans, relying neither on my own prudence, nor on
human counsels, but on many and manifest intimations of the will of the
immortal gods; under whose guidance I first entertained this hope and this
opinion; who are now defending their temples and the houses of the city, not
afar off, as they were used to, from a foreign and distant enemy, but here on
the spot, by their own divinity and present help. And you, O Romans, ought to
pray to and implore them to defend from the nefarious wickedness of abandoned
citizens, now that all the forces of all enemies are defeated by land and sea,
this city which they have ordained to be the most beautiful and flourishing of
all cities.
Note 1. In the argument prefixed to the second oration against Catiline, it
is said that when Catiline alleged his high birth, and the stake which he had
in the prosperity of the commonwealth, as arguments to make it appear
improbable that he should seek to injure it, and called Cicero a stranger, and
a new inhabitant of Rome, the senate interrupted him with a general outcry,
calling him traitor and parricide; upon which, being rendered furious and
desperate, he declared aloud what he had before said to Cato, that since he was
circumvented and driven headlong by his enemies, he would quench the flame
which his enemies were kindling around him in the common ruin. And so he rushed
out of the temple.
from "The World's Great
Orations" ed. by William Jennings Bryan, 1906, published in full by
bartelsby.com