Against Catiline, Third Speech
In Catilinam III
Headnote
The third Catilinarian, delivered to the people in the Forum on the evening of 3 December 63 BC — the day on which the conspiracy was at last manifestly caught. The narrative is the most dramatic in the corpus: through the Allobrogan envoys, who had been approached by the conspirators with proposals for a Gallic rising, Cicero had laid an ambush at the Mulvian Bridge. The praetors Lucius Flaccus and Gaius Pomptinus, posted in two parts on either side of the Tiber, intercepted the envoys’ party near dawn; the letters from Lentulus, Cethegus, Statilius, and Gabinius to the Allobrogan senate and to Catiline were taken with the seals unbroken. Brought before the Senate that morning, the conspirators were confronted with their own seals and hands and confessed in turn. Lentulus, the urban praetor and self-proclaimed third Cornelius (after Cinna and Sulla) fated to rule, broke down when shown the seal that bore the image of his grandfather. Gaius Cethegus, when his cache of swords and daggers was produced, claimed at first to be a fancier of fine ironwork, then fell silent. The Senate decreed custody for the nine principal conspirators; Lentulus, who had to abdicate his praetorship before he could be held, did so. Cicero received the first supplicatio togato — thanksgiving to the gods in the name of a togate citizen, not a general — in the recorded history of the city: “because I had freed the city from fires, the citizens from slaughter, Italy from war.”
Cicero’s narrative occupies more than half the speech. The closing third develops two themes. The first is the role of the immortal gods: the lightning-strikes and earthquakes under Cotta and Torquatus, and the haruspices’ instruction to remake the statue of Jupiter on the Capitoline larger and turned to the east — which statue, set up that very morning by coincidence as the conspirators were being marched in chains across the Forum to the temple of Concord, faced its own discovery. “He, he, Jupiter resisted; he willed the Capitoline, he these temples, he the entire city, he you all, to be safe.” The second is the meditation on what Cicero has done in comparison with previous civil dissensions: Sulpicius and Marius, Octavius and Cinna, Lepidus and Catulus — all those wished only to alter the commonwealth, not destroy it; this conspiracy alone willed the extinction of the city itself, and was conquered “without slaughter, without blood, without an army, without battle” — by a togate consul. The closing pivot looks ahead, in hope and in foreboding, to the future of the man who saved the city: he will live with those whom he has conquered. The Fourth Catilinarian, two days later, debates what to do with the prisoners.
The commonwealth, citizens, and the lives of you all, your goods, fortunes, wives and children, and this dwelling-place of a most distinguished empire, this most fortunate and most beautiful city, you see this day — through the immortal gods’ supreme love towards you, through my labours, my counsels, my dangers — snatched from flame and sword and almost from the jaws of fate, preserved for you and restored.
rem publicam, Quirites, vitamque omnium vestrum, bona, fortunas, coniuges liberosque vestros atque hoc domicilium clarissimi imperi, fortunatissimam pulcherrimamque urbem, hodierno die deorum immortalium summo erga vos amore, laboribus, consiliis, periculis meis e flamma atque ferro ac paene ex faucibus fati ereptam et vobis conservatam ac restitutam videtis.
And if those days on which we are saved are no less pleasant and bright to us than those on which we are born — because the joy of safety is sure, the condition of birth uncertain, and because we are born without sense, while we are saved with pleasure — surely, since the man who founded this city we have raised to the immortal gods by goodwill and by repute, he too ought to be in honour with you and your descendants who has saved this same city, founded and enlarged. For we have put out the fires that were already laid almost beneath the whole city, its temples, shrines, houses, and walls, and that surrounded them; the same swords drawn against the commonwealth we have blunted, and we have struck their points away from your throats.
et si non minus nobis iucundi atque inlustres sunt ei dies quibus conservamur quam illi quibus nascimur, quod salutis certa laetitia est, nascendi incerta condicio et quod sine sensu nascimur, cum voluptate servamur, profecto, quoniam illum qui hanc urbem condidit ad deos immortalis benivolentia famaque sustulimus, esse apud vos posterosque vestros in honore debebit is qui eandem hanc urbem conditam amplificatamque servavit. nam toti urbi, templis, delubris, tectis ac moenibus subiectos prope iam ignis circumdatosque restinximus, idemque gladios in rem publicam destrictos rettudimus mucronesque eorum a iugulis vestris deiecimus.
Since these things have been brought to light in the Senate, laid open, found out by me, I shall now expound them briefly to you — so that you, who do not know and are waiting, may learn how great they were, how manifest, by what method investigated and seized. To begin with, when Catiline a few days ago burst out of the city, leaving behind at Rome the partners of his crime — the keenest leaders of this wicked war — I always kept watch and provided, citizens, how in such great and so hidden snares we might be safe. For at the time when I was casting Catiline out of the city — I do not now fear the odium of this word, since the more dreaded odium is that he went out alive — but at the time when I wished him driven into exile, I supposed either that the rest of the conspirators’ band would go out with him, or that those who stayed behind would be feeble and weak without him.
quae quoniam in senatu inlustrata, patefacta, comperta sunt per me, vobis iam exponam breviter ut et quanta et quam manifesta et qua ratione investigata et comprehensa sint vos qui et ignoratis et exspectatis scire possitis. principio, ut Catilina paucis ante diebus erupit ex urbe, cum sceleris sui socios huiusce nefarii belli acerrimos duces Romae reliquisset, semper vigilavi et providi, Quirites, quem ad modum in tantis et tam absconditis insidiis salvi esse possemus. nam tum cum ex urbe Catilinam eiciebam — non enim iam vereor huius verbi invidiam, cum illa magis sit timenda, quod vivus exierit —, sed tum cum illum exterminari volebam, aut reliquam coniuratorum manum simul exituram aut eos qui restitissent infirmos sine illo ac debilis fore putabam.
And I, when I saw that those whom I knew to be inflamed with the highest madness and crime were with us and had remained at Rome, spent on this all my days and nights: that I might perceive and see what they were doing, what they were contriving — so that, since on account of the incredible magnitude of the crime my speech would have less weight with your ears, I might so seize the matter that, only when you saw with your eyes the very wickedness, then at last you might in your hearts provide for your safety. So when I learned that envoys of the Allobroges, for the sake of stirring up a Transalpine war and a Gallic alarm, had been solicited by Publius Lentulus, and that they were being sent into Gaul to their fellow-citizens, with letters and instructions to Catiline by the same route, and that Titus Volturcius had been added to them as a companion, and that to him letters had been given for Catiline — I thought the opportunity offered me, what was most difficult and what I had always begged of the immortal gods, that the whole matter should be manifestly caught not only by me but also by the Senate and by you.
atque ego, ut vidi, quos maximo furore et scelere esse inflammatos sciebam, eos nobiscum esse et Romae remansisse, in eo omnis dies noctesque consumpsi ut quid agerent, quid molirentur sentirem ac viderem, ut, quoniam auribus vestris propter incredibilem magnitudinem sceleris minorem fidem faceret oratio mea, rem ita comprehenderem ut tum demum animis saluti vestrae provideretis cum oculis maleficium ipsum videretis. itaque ut comperi legatos Allobrogum belli Transalpini et tumultus Gallici excitandi causa a P. P ublio Lentulo esse sollicitatos, eosque in Galliam ad suos civis eodemque itinere cum litteris mandatisque ad Catilinam esse missos, comitemque eis adiunctum esse T. T itum Volturcium, atque huic esse ad Catilinam datas litteras, facultatem mihi oblatam putavi ut, quod erat difficillimum quodque ego semper optabam ab dis immortalibus, tota res non solum a me sed etiam a senatu et a vobis manifesto deprenderetur.
So yesterday I summoned to me Lucius Flaccus and Gaius Pomptinus, the praetors, men most brave and most loving toward the commonwealth; I laid out the business; I showed what I wished done. They, who in everything concerning the commonwealth feel splendidly and well, took up the matter without refusal and without any delay; and as evening came on, they made their way secretly to the Mulvian Bridge, and there in the nearest country houses they posted themselves in two parts so that the Tiber and the bridge stood between them. To the same place they themselves had brought, without anyone’s suspicion, many brave men; and I had sent from the prefecture of Reate several picked young men, whose service I use constantly in the defence of the commonwealth, with swords.
itaque hesterno die L. L ucium Flaccum et C. G aium Pomptinum praetores, fortissimos atque amantissimos rei publicae viros, ad me vocavi, rem exposui, quid fieri placeret ostendi. illi autem, qui omnia de re publica praeclara atque egregia sentirent, sine recusatione ac sine ulla mora negotium susceperunt et, cum advesperasceret, occulte ad pontem Mulvium pervenerunt atque ibi in proximis villis ita bipertito fuerunt ut Tiberis inter eos et pons interesset. eodem autem et ipsi sine cuiusquam suspicione multos fortis viros eduxerant, et ego ex praefectura Reatina compluris delectos adulescentis quorum opera utor adsidue in rei publicae praesidio cum gladiis miseram.
Meanwhile, about the third watch of the night ended, when the envoys of the Allobroges with a great escort were beginning to enter on the Mulvian Bridge — and Volturcius along with them — an attack is made upon them; swords are drawn both by their party and by ours. The matter was known to the praetors only; it was unknown to the rest. Then by the intervention of Pomptinus and Flaccus the fight that had begun is settled. Whatever letters were in that escort were handed over to the praetors with the seals unbroken; the men themselves, having been seized, are brought to me as day was beginning to dawn. And the most wicked plotter of all these crimes, Cimber Gabinius, I called to me at once, while he yet suspected nothing; then in the same way Lucius Statilius was sent for, and after him Cethegus; but most slowly Lentulus came — because, I suppose, the previous night he had stayed up beyond his custom over the writing of the letters.
interim tertia fere vigilia exacta, cum iam pontem Mulvium magno comitatu legati Allobroges ingredi inciperent unaque Volturcius, fit in eos impetus; ducuntur et ab illis gladii et a nostris. res praetoribus erat nota solis, ignorabatur a ceteris. tum interventu Pomptini atque Flacci pugna quae erat commissa sedatur. Litterae quaecumque erant in eo comitatu integris signis praetoribus traduntur; ipsi comprehensi ad me, cum iam dilucesceret, deducuntur. atque horum omnium scelerum improbissimum machinatorem, Cimbrum Gabinium, statim ad me nihil dum suspicantem vocavi; deinde item arcessitus est L. L ucius Statilius et post eum Cethegus; tardissime autem Lentulus venit, credo quod in litteris dandis praeter consuetudinem proxima nocte vigilarat.
When the highest and most distinguished men of this state, who, on hearing of the matter, had come together to me in numbers in the morning, judged that the letters should be opened by me before being brought to the Senate, lest, if nothing should be found, so great a commotion should seem rashly thrown by me upon the state — I refused to do so, lest in a public danger I should not bring an unbroken matter before the public council. For, citizens, even if the things which had been brought to me had not been found, yet I did not think that in such great dangers to the commonwealth there was any excessive diligence on my part to be feared. The full Senate I quickly assembled, as you saw.
cum summis et clarissimis huius civitatis viris qui audita re frequentes ad me mane convenerant litteras a me prius aperiri quam ad senatum deferri placeret, ne, si nihil esset inventum, temere a me tantus tumultus iniectus civitati videretur, negavi me esse facturum ut de periculo publico non ad consilium publicum rem integram deferrem. etenim, Quirites, si ea quae erant ad me delata reperta non essent, tamen ego non arbitrabar in tantis rei publicae periculis esse mihi nimiam diligentiam pertimescendam. senatum frequentem celeriter, ut vidistis, coegi.
And meanwhile, on the prompt of the Allobroges, I sent at once Gaius Sulpicius the praetor, a brave man, to bring out from Cethegus’s house any weapons that were there. From which he brought out a very large number of daggers and swords. I brought in Volturcius without the Gauls; on the Senate’s order I gave him the public assurance; I urged him to declare without fear what he knew. Then he, when he had with difficulty recovered from a great fear, said that he had received from Publius Lentulus instructions and a letter for Catiline — that Catiline should make use of the protection of slaves and approach the city with his army as soon as possible; this with the design that, when they had set fire to the city on every side, in the manner that had been laid out and apportioned, and when they had carried out an unbounded slaughter of citizens, he might be at hand both to receive the fugitives and to join himself with these urban leaders.
atque interea statim admonitu Allobrogum C. G aium Sulpicium praetorem, fortem virum, misi qui ex aedibus Cethegi si quid telorum esset efferret; ex quibus ille maximum sicarum numerum et gladiorum extulit. introduxi Volturcium sine Gallis; fidem publicam iussu senatus dedi; hortatus sum ut ea quae sciret sine timore indicaret. tum ille dixit, cum vix se ex magno timore recreasset, a P. P ublio Lentulo se habere ad Catilinam mandata et litteras ut servorum praesidio uteretur, ut ad urbem quam primum cum exercitu accederet; id autem eo consilio ut, cum urbem ex omnibus partibus quem ad modum descriptum distributumque erat incendissent caedemque infinitam civium fecissent, praesto esset ille qui et fugientis exciperet et se cum his urbanis ducibus coniungeret.
The Gauls, brought in, said that an oath and a letter to their nation had been given them by Publius Lentulus, Cethegus, and Statilius, and that it was prescribed to them by these and by Lucius Cassius that they should send cavalry into Italy as soon as possible; foot-troops they would not lack. That Lentulus had assured them, on the strength of the Sibylline books and the responses of the haruspices, that he was the third of those Cornelii to whom rule of this city and of empire must come: Cinna and Sulla had been before him. The same man had said that this was the year fated for the destruction of this city and empire — the tenth year after the acquittal of the Vestals, the twentieth after the burning of the Capitoline.
introducti autem Galli ius iurandum sibi et litteras a P. P ublio Lentulo, Cethego, Statilio ad suam gentem datas esse dixerunt, atque ita sibi ab his et a L. L ucio Cassio esse praescriptum ut equitatum in Italiam quam primum mitterent; pedestris sibi copias non defuturas. Lentulum autem sibi confirmasse ex fatis Sibyllinis haruspicumque responsis se esse tertium illum Cornelium ad quem regnum huius urbis atque imperium pervenire esset necesse: Cinnam ante se et Sullam fuisse. eundemque dixisse fatalem hunc annum esse ad interitum huius urbis atque imperi qui esset annus decimus post virginum absolutionem, post Capitoli autem incensionem vicesimus.
They said also that there had been a dispute between Cethegus and the rest, because Lentulus and the others wished the slaughter to be done and the city burnt at the Saturnalia, while to Cethegus that seemed too long. And, not to be long, citizens, we ordered the tablets to be brought forward which were said to have been given by each. First we showed them to Cethegus: he recognized the seal. We cut the thread; we read. It was written in his own hand to the Senate and people of the Allobroges that he would do what he had promised their envoys; he asked that they likewise do what their envoys had received from him. Then Cethegus, who had a little earlier made some answer about the swords and daggers that had been seized at his house and had said he had always been a fancier of fine ironwork, when the letter had been read, broken down and dejected by his conscience, suddenly fell silent. Statilius was brought in, and recognized both the seal and his own hand. The tablets were read out, in nearly the same sense; he confessed. Then I showed the tablets to Lentulus and asked whether he recognized the seal. He nodded. “It is, indeed,” said I, “a known seal, the image of your grandfather, that most distinguished man, who singularly loved his country and his fellow-citizens; whose seal even mute should have called you back from such a crime.”
hanc autem Cethego cum ceteris controversiam fuisse dixerunt quod Lentulo et aliis Saturnalibus caedem fieri atque urbem incendi placeret, Cethego nimium id longum videretur. ac ne longum sit, Quirites, tabellas proferri iussimus quae a quoque dicebantur datae. primo ostendimus Cethego: signum cognovit. nos linum incidimus; legimus. erat scriptum ipsius manu Allobrogum senatui et populo sese quae eorum legatis confirmasset facturum esse; orare ut item illi facerent quae sibi eorum legati recepissent. tum Cethegus, qui paulo ante aliquid tamen de gladiis ac sicis quae apud ipsum erant deprehensa respondisset dixissetque se semper bonorum ferramentorum studiosum fuisse, recitatis litteris debilitatus atque abiectus conscientia repente conticuit. introductus Statilius cognovit et signum et manum suam. recitatae sunt tabellae in eandem fere sententiam; confessus est. tum ostendi tabellas Lentulo et quaesivi cognosceretne signum. adnuit. ‘ est vero’ inquam ‘notum quidem signum, imago avi tui, clarissimi viri, qui amavit unice patriam et civis suos; quae quidem te a tanto scelere etiam muta revocare debuit.’
Letters were read out in the same fashion to the Senate and people of the Allobroges. If he wished to say anything about these matters, I gave him the chance. And he at first denied; but afterwards, when the whole indication had been laid out and made public, he rose, asked the Gauls what they had to do with him, why they had come to his house — and likewise asked Volturcius. When they had answered him briefly and steadily through whom and how often they had come to him, and had asked him whether he had not spoken with them at all about the Sibylline books, then suddenly, mad with crime, he showed how great is the force of conscience. For when he could have denied it, suddenly — contrary to everyone’s opinion — he confessed. So he was failed not only by that genius and practice in speaking by which he had always been strong, but also, through the force of his manifest and detected crime, by the impudence by which he used to surpass everyone, and by his wickedness.
leguntur eadem ratione ad senatum Allobrogum populumque litterae. si quid de his rebus dicere vellet, feci potestatem. atque ille primo quidem negavit; post autem aliquanto, toto iam indicio exposito atque edito, surrexit, quaesivit a Gallis quid sibi esset cum eis, quam ob rem domum suam venissent, itemque a Volturcio. qui cum illi breviter constanterque respondissent per quem ad eum quotiensque venissent, quaesissentque ab eo nihilne secum esset de fatis Sibyllinis locutus, tum ille subito scelere demens quanta conscientiae vis esset ostendit. nam, cum id posset infitiari, repente praeter opinionem omnium confessus est. ita eum non modo ingenium illud et dicendi exercitatio qua semper valuit sed etiam propter vim sceleris manifesti atque deprehensi impudentia qua superabat omnis improbitasque defecit.
Volturcius, however, suddenly demands that the letters be brought forward and opened which he said had been given him by Lentulus to Catiline. And there Lentulus, although vehemently disturbed, recognized the seal and his hand. The letter, however, was without a name, but ran thus: “Who I am you will know from the man whom I have sent to you. Take care to be a man, and consider into what place you have advanced. See what is now necessary to you, and take care to add the supports of all to yourself, even of the lowest.” Gabinius, then brought in — when he had begun at first to answer impudently — in the end denied none of the things which the Gauls were charging.
Volturcius vero subito litteras proferri atque aperiri iubet quas sibi a Lentulo ad Catilinam datas esse dicebat. atque ibi vehementissime perturbatus Lentulus tamen et signum et manum suam cognovit. erant autem sine nomine, sed ita: ‘ quis sim scies ex eo quem ad te misi. cura ut vir sis et cogita quem in locum sis progressus. vide ecquid tibi iam sit necesse et cura ut omnium tibi auxilia adiungas, etiam infimorum.’ Gabinius deinde introductus, cum primo impudenter respondere coepisset, ad extremum nihil ex eis quae Galli insimulabant negavit.
And to me, citizens, although those proofs and indications of the crime seemed quite certain — the tablets, the seals, the hands, in short the confession of each — yet much more certain were these: the colour, the eyes, the looks, the silence. For so were they stupefied, so they were gazing at the ground, so they were now and then exchanging furtive glances with one another, that they seemed not so much to be informed against by others as to be informing against themselves. The indications laid out and made public, citizens, I consulted the Senate concerning the supreme matter of state, what was to be done. Speeches were made by the leading men, most keen and most courageous, which the Senate followed without any variance. And since the decree of the Senate has not yet been written out, from memory I will set out for you, citizens, what the Senate decreed.
ac mihi quidem, Quirites, cum illa certissima visa sunt argumenta atque indicia sceleris, tabellae, signa, manus, denique unius cuiusque confessio, tum multo certiora illa, color, oculi, voltus, taciturnitas. sic enim obstupuerant, sic terram intuebantur, sic furtim non numquam inter sese aspiciebant ut non iam ab aliis indicari sed indicare se ipsi viderentur. indiciis expositis atque editis, Quirites, senatum consului de summa re publica quid fieri placeret. Dictae sunt a principibus acerrimae ac fortissimae sententiae, quas senatus sine ulla varietate est secutus. et quoniam nondum est perscriptum senatus consultum, ex memoria vobis, Quirites, quid senatus censuerit exponam.
First, thanks were given to me in the most ample words, that by my courage, counsel, and foresight the commonwealth had been freed of the greatest dangers. Then Lucius Flaccus and Gaius Pomptinus, the praetors, since I had used their brave and faithful service, were deservedly and rightly praised. And to a brave man, my colleague, praise was rendered, that he had removed those who were partners in this conspiracy from his own and from the commonwealth’s counsels. And so they decreed: that Publius Lentulus, when he had abdicated his praetorship, should be handed over to custody; likewise that Gaius Cethegus, Lucius Statilius, Publius Gabinius — all of whom were present — should be handed over to custody. And the same was decreed against Lucius Cassius, who had demanded for himself the management of burning the city; against Marcus Ceparius, to whom it had been disclosed that Apulia had been allotted for stirring up the shepherds; against Publius Furius, who is from those colonists whom Lucius Sulla settled at Faesulae; against Quintus Annius Chilo, who together with this Furius had always been engaged in this stirring up of the Allobroges; against Publius Umbrenus, a freedman, by whom it was clear that the Gauls had been first brought to Gabinius. And the Senate used such mildness, citizens, that out of so great a conspiracy and so great a multitude of domestic enemies, with the punishment of nine of the most lost men, the commonwealth saved, it judged that the minds of the rest could be healed.
primum mihi gratiae verbis amplissimis aguntur, quod virtute, consilio, providentia mea res publica maximis periculis sit liberata. deinde L. L ucius Flaccus et C. G aius Pomptinus praetores, quod eorum opera forti fidelique usus essem, merito ac iure laudantur. atque etiam viro forti, conlegae meo, laus impertitur, quod eos qui huius coniurationis participes fuissent a suis et a rei publicae consiliis removisset. atque ita censuerunt ut P. P ublius Lentulus, cum se praetura abdicasset, in custodiam traderetur; itemque uti C. G aius Cethegus, L. L ucius Statilius, P. P ublius Gabinius qui omnes praesentes erant in custodiam traderentur; atque idem hoc decretum est in L. L ucium Cassium qui sibi procurationem incendendae urbis depoposcerat, in M. M arcum Ceparium cui ad sollicitandos pastores Apuliam attributam esse erat indicatum, in P. P ublium Furium qui est ex eis colonis quos Faesulas L. L ucius Sulla deduxit, in Q. Q uintum Annium Chilonem qui una cum hoc Furio semper erat in hac Allobrogum sollicitatione versatus, in P. P ublium Umbrenum, libertinum hominem, a quo primum Gallos ad Gabinium perductos esse constabat. atque ea lenitate senatus est usus, Quirites, ut ex tanta coniuratione tantaque hac multitudine domesticorum hostium novem hominum perditissimorum poena re publica conservata reliquorum mentis sanari posse arbitraretur.
And besides, a thanksgiving was decreed to the immortal gods for their singular merit, in my name — which since this city was founded has befallen me first as togate citizen — and decreed in these words: “because I had freed the city from fires, the citizens from slaughter, Italy from war.” Which thanksgiving, if compared with other thanksgivings, has this difference: the others have been set up for affairs well managed, this one alone for the commonwealth saved. And what had to be done first has been done and concluded. For Publius Lentulus, although by the indications laid open, by his own confessions, by the judgment of the Senate, he had lost not only the right of a praetor but also of a citizen, yet abdicated his magistracy — so that the religious scruple which had not stopped Gaius Marius, that most distinguished man, from killing Gaius Glaucia the praetor (about whom nothing had been decreed by name), of that scruple we should be free in punishing Publius Lentulus as a private man.
atque etiam supplicatio dis immortalibus pro singulari eorum merito meo nomine decreta est, quod mihi primum post hanc urbem conditam togato contigit, et his decreta verbis est: ‘quod urbem incendiis, caede civis, Italiam bello liberassem.’ quae supplicatio si cum ceteris supplicationibus conferatur, hoc interest, quod ceterae bene gesta, haec una conservata re publica constituta est. atque illud quod faciendum primum fuit factum atque transactum est. nam P. P ublius Lentulus, quamquam patefactis indiciis, confessionibus suis, iudicio senatus non modo praetoris ius verum etiam civis amiserat, tamen magistratu se abdicavit, ut quae religio C. G aio Mario, clarissimo viro, non fuerat quo minus C. G aium Glauciam de quo nihil nominatim erat decretum praetorem occideret, ea nos religione in privato P. P ublio Lentulo puniendo liberaremur.
Now since you, citizens, hold seized and arrested the wicked leaders of the most criminal and dangerous war, you must judge that all of Catiline’s forces, all his hopes and resources, with these dangers driven from the city, have collapsed. Whom indeed I, when I was driving out of the city, foresaw in my mind, citizens, that with Catiline removed I had nothing to dread from Publius Lentulus’s drowsiness, nor from Lucius Cassius’s fat, nor from Gaius Cethegus’s frenzied recklessness. Catiline alone of all those was to be feared — but only so long as he was contained within the walls of the city. He knew everything, he held the approaches to all; he could call upon, try, solicit; he dared. He had a mind apt for crime, and to that mind neither tongue nor hand was wanting. Already for definite tasks he had definite men picked out and apportioned. Nor did he, when he had given some commission, think it done: there was nothing he himself did not undertake, run to, watch over, labour at; cold, thirst, hunger he could endure.
nunc quoniam, Quirites, consceleratissimi periculosissimique belli nefarios duces captos iam et comprehensos tenetis, existimare debetis omnis Catilinae copias, omnis spes atque opes his depulsis urbis periculis concidisse. quem quidem ego cum ex urbe pellebam, hoc providebam animo, Quirites, remoto Catilina non mihi esse P. P ublii Lentuli somnum nec L. L ucii Cassi adipes nec C. G aii Cethegi furiosam temeritatem pertimescendam. ille erat unus timendus ex istis omnibus, sed tam diu dum urbis moenibus continebatur. omnia norat, omnium aditus tenebat; appellare, temptare, sollicitare poterat, audebat. erat ei consilium ad facinus aptum, consilio autem neque lingua neque manus deerat. iam ad certas res conficiendas certos homines delectos ac descriptos habebat. neque vero, cum aliquid mandarat, confectum putabat: nihil erat quod non ipse obiret, occurreret, vigilaret, laboraret; frigus, sitim, famem ferre poterat.
This man, so keen, so audacious, so prepared, so cunning, so vigilant in crime, so diligent in lost causes, — if I had not driven him from his domestic plot into a brigandage in camp (I shall say what I think, citizens) — I should not easily have driven this so great mass of evil from your necks. He would not have appointed for us the Saturnalia, nor would he have so long beforehand declared the day of the commonwealth’s destruction and fate, nor would he have allowed his seal, his letters — the manifest witnesses of his crime — to be caught. Which now, with him absent, have been so handled that no theft in a private house was ever found out so openly as this conspiracy in the whole commonwealth has been manifestly seized. But if Catiline had remained in the city up to this day — although, as long as he was here, I met and obstructed all his designs — yet, to put it most lightly, we should have had to fight with him, nor should we ever, with him in the city as an enemy, have freed the commonwealth of such great dangers in such great peace, in such great quiet, in such great silence.
hunc ego hominem tam acrem, tam audacem, tam paratum, tam callidum, tam in scelere vigilantem, tam in perditis rebus diligentem nisi ex domesticis insidiis in castrense latrocinium compulissem — dicam id quod sentio, Quirites — non facile hanc tantam molem mali a cervicibus vestris depulissem. non ille nobis Saturnalia constituisset, neque tanto ante exiti ac fati diem rei publicae denuntiavisset neque commisisset ut signum, ut litterae suae testes manifesti sceleris deprehenderentur. quae nunc illo absente sic gesta sunt ut nullum in privata domo furtum umquam sit tam palam inventum quam haec in tota re publica coniuratio manifesto comprehensa est. quod si Catilina in urbe ad hanc diem remansisset, quamquam, quoad fuit, omnibus eius consiliis occurri atque obstiti, tamen, ut levissime dicam, dimicandum nobis cum illo fuisset, neque nos umquam, cum ille in urbe hostis esset, tantis periculis rem publicam tanta pace, tanto otio, tanto silentio liberassemus.
And yet all these things, citizens, have been so administered by me that they seem to have been done and provided by the nod and counsel of the immortal gods. And we may attain this by conjecture, in that the steering of so great matters scarcely seems to have been able to be of human counsel; but in fact they have so present in these times brought us help and aid that we can almost see them with our eyes. For, to leave aside those things — the torches seen at night-time from the west, and the burning of the sky, the strokes of lightning, the earthquakes; to leave aside the rest, which were so many in our consulship that the immortal gods seemed to be foretelling these things which now happen — this at least, citizens, which I am about to say, must neither be passed over nor left aside.
quamquam haec omnia, Quirites, ita sunt a me administrata ut deorum immortalium nutu atque consilio et gesta et provisa esse videantur. idque cum coniectura consequi possumus, quod vix videtur humani consili tantarum rerum gubernatio esse potuisse, tum vero ita praesentes his temporibus opem et auxilium nobis tulerunt ut eos paene oculis videre possimus. nam ut illa omittam, visas nocturno tempore ab occidente faces ardoremque caeli, ut fulminum iactus, ut terrae motus relinquam, ut omittam cetera quae tam multa nobis consulibus facta sunt ut haec quae nunc fiunt canere di immortales viderentur, hoc certe, Quirites, quod sum dicturus neque praetermittendum neque relinquendum est.
For surely you remember that, in the consulship of Cotta and Torquatus, several things on the Capitoline were struck from heaven — when both the images of the gods were thrown down and the statues of ancient men were cast down, and the bronze tablets of the laws were melted, and even the founder of this city, Romulus, was touched, whom you remember to have stood gilded on the Capitoline, small and at the breast, gaping for the wolfish dugs. At that time, when the haruspices had come together from all Etruria, they said that slaughter and fires and the destruction of the laws and a civil and domestic war and the fall of the whole city and empire was approaching, unless the immortal gods, by every means appeased, by their divinity should bend the very fates.
nam profecto memoria tenetis Cotta et Torquato consulibus compluris in Capitolio res de caelo esse percussas, cum et simulacra deorum depulsa sunt et statuae veterum hominum deiectae et legum aera liquefacta et tactus etiam ille qui hanc urbem condidit Romulus, quem inauratum in Capitolio, parvum atque lactantem, uberibus lupinis inhiantem fuisse meministis. quo quidem tempore cum haruspices ex tota Etruria convenissent, caedis atque incendia et legum interitum et bellum civile ac domesticum et totius urbis atque imperi occasum appropinquare dixerunt, nisi di immortales omni ratione placati suo numine prope fata ipsa flexissent.
And so by their responses both games for ten days were then held, and no thing that pertained to the placating of the gods was left undone. The same men ordered an image of Jupiter to be made larger, and to be set up on a high place, and turned — as it had not been before — toward the east. And they said that they hoped, if that statue which you see should look upon the rising of the sun and the Forum and the Senate-house, then those designs which had been entered upon in secret against the safety of the city and the empire would be brought to light so as to be discerned by the Senate and the Roman people. And those consuls let out the contract for the setting up of that statue. But so great was the slowness of the work that neither under the previous consuls nor under us was it set up before this very day.
itaque illorum responsis tum et ludi per decem dies facti sunt neque res ulla quae ad placandos deos pertineret praetermissa est. idemque iusserunt simulacrum Iovis facere maius et in excelso conlocare et contra atque antea fuerat ad orientem convertere; ac se sperare dixerunt, si illud signum quod videtis solis ortum et forum curiamque conspiceret, fore ut ea consilia quae clam essent inita contra salutem urbis atque imperi inlustrarentur ut a senatu populoque Romano perspici possent. atque illud signum conlocandum consules illi locaverunt; sed tanta fuit operis tarditas ut neque superioribus consulibus neque nobis ante hodiernum diem conlocaretur.
Here who can be so averse to the truth, so headlong, so deranged in mind, as to deny that all these things which we see, and especially this city, are administered by the nod and power of the immortal gods? When it had been so answered that slaughter, fires, the destruction of the commonwealth were being prepared — and that by citizens (which then, on account of the magnitude of the crimes, seemed incredible to some) — you have perceived that those things were not only thought of by wicked citizens but also undertaken. And does not this, indeed, seem so present that it appears to have been done by the nod of Jupiter Best and Greatest? — that, when this very day in the morning by my order both the conspirators and their informers were being led through the Forum to the temple of Concord, at that very moment the statue was being set up. With it set up and turned toward you and toward the Senate, you saw that everything which was being designed against the safety of all had been brought to light and laid open by the Senate and by you.
hic quis potest esse tam aversus a vero, tam praeceps, tam mente captus qui neget haec omnia quae videmus praecipueque hanc urbem deorum immortalium nutu ac potestate administrari? etenim cum esset ita responsum, caedis, incendia, interitum rei publicae comparari, et ea per civis, quae tum propter magnitudinem scelerum non nullis incredibilia videbantur, ea non modo cogitata a nefariis civibus verum etiam suscepta esse sensistis. illud vero nonne ita praesens est ut nutu Iovis optimi maximi factum esse videatur, ut, cum hodierno die mane per forum meo iussu et coniurati et eorum indices in aedem Concordiae ducerentur, eo ipso tempore signum statueretur? quo conlocato atque ad vos senatumque converso omnia et senatus et vos quae erant contra salutem omnium cogitata inlustrata et patefacta vidistis.
For which they are the more deserving of hatred and punishment, who not only at your dwellings and roofs but even at the temples and shrines of the gods have tried to bring deadly and wicked fires. Whom if I should say I have resisted, I should claim too much for myself and not be borne: he, he, Jupiter resisted; he willed the Capitoline, he these temples, he the entire city, he you all, to be safe. With the immortal gods as my leaders, citizens, I undertook this mind and will and came upon these so great indications. Why, that Allobroges’ solicitation — that by Lentulus and the rest of the domestic enemies, in such madness, so great matters were entrusted to unknown and barbarous men, and that letters were committed to them — this surely would never have been, unless from the immortal gods counsel had been wrenched from such great audacity. And what of this — that men of Gaul, from a state ill at peace, the one nation which seems to remain that could make war on the Roman people and not be unwilling to, neglected the hope of empire and the greatest things offered them by patrician men, and preferred your safety to their own resources — do you not think this was done divinely? particularly since they could have overcome us not by fighting but by keeping silent.
quo etiam maiore sunt isti odio supplicioque digni qui non solum vestris domiciliis atque tectis sed etiam deorum templis atque delubris sunt funestos ac nefarios ignis inferre conati. quibus ego si me restitisse dicam, nimium mihi sumam et non sim ferendus: ille, ille Iuppiter restitit; ille Capitolium, ille haec templa, ille cunctam urbem, ille vos omnis salvos esse voluit. dis ego immortalibus ducibus hanc mentem voluntatemque suscepi atque ad haec tanta indicia perveni. iam vero illa Allobrogum sollicitatio, iam ab Lentulo ceterisque domesticis hostibus tam dementer tantae res creditae et ignotis et barbaris commissaeque litterae numquam essent profecto, nisi ab dis immortalibus huic tantae audaciae consilium esset ereptum. quid vero? ut homines Galli ex civitate male pacata, quae gens una restat quae bellum populo Romano facere posse et non nolle videatur, spem imperi ac rerum maximarum ultro sibi a patriciis hominibus oblatam neglegerent vestramque salutem suis opibus anteponerent, id non divinitus esse factum putatis, praesertim qui nos non pugnando sed tacendo superare potuerunt?
For which reason, citizens, since a thanksgiving has been decreed at all the couches of the gods, celebrate those days with your wives and children. For many honours have often been justly given and rendered to the immortal gods, but never surely more justly. For you have been snatched from a most cruel and most wretched destruction — snatched without slaughter, without blood, without an army, without battle; togate, with me alone as togate leader and commander, you have conquered.
quam ob rem, Quirites, quoniam ad omnia pulvinaria supplicatio decreta est, celebratote illos dies cum coniugibus ac liberis vestris. nam multi saepe honores dis immortalibus iusti habiti sunt ac debiti, sed profecto iustiores numquam. erepti enim estis ex crudelissimo ac miserrimo interitu, erepti sine caede, sine sanguine, sine exercitu, sine dimicatione; togati me uno togato duce et imperatore vicistis.
Recall, citizens, all civil dissensions, not only those which you have heard of but those which you yourselves remember and have seen. Lucius Sulla crushed Publius Sulpicius; Gaius Marius, the guardian of this city, and many brave men he partly drove from the state, partly killed. Gnaeus Octavius the consul drove his colleague from the city by arms: this whole place ran with heaps of bodies and the blood of citizens. Then Cinna with Marius prevailed: then with most distinguished men killed the lights of the state were extinguished. The cruelty of this victory Sulla afterwards avenged: there is no need to say with what diminution of citizens and what calamity to the commonwealth. Marcus Lepidus dissented from the most distinguished and most brave Quintus Catulus: not so much his own destruction brought sorrow to the commonwealth as that of others.
etenim recordamini, Quirites, omnis civilis dissensiones, non solum eas quas audistis sed eas quas vosmet ipsi meministis atque vidistis. L. L ucius Sulla P. P ublium Sulpicium oppressit: C. G aium Marium, custodem huius urbis, multosque fortis viros partim eiecit ex civitate, partim interemit. Cn. G naeus Octavius consul armis expulit ex urbe conlegam: omnis hic locus acervis corporum et civium sanguine redundavit. superavit postea Cinna cum Mario: tum vero clarissimis viris interfectis lumina civitatis exstincta sunt. Vltus est huius victoriae crudelitatem postea Sulla: ne dici quidem opus est quanta deminutione civium et quanta calamitate rei publicae. dissensit M. M arcus Lepidus a clarissimo et fortissimo viro Q. Q uinto Catulo: attulit non tam ipsius interitus rei publicae luctum quam ceterorum.
And yet all those dissensions were of the kind that pertained not to the destruction but to the alteration of the commonwealth. They did not wish that there be no commonwealth, but that they themselves be the leading men in the one that was; nor did they wish this city to be burned, but themselves to flourish in this city. And yet all those dissensions, of which none sought the ruin of the commonwealth, were of such a kind that they were settled not by the reconciliation of concord but by the slaughter of citizens. But in this one war, the greatest and cruellest within the memory of mankind — such a war as no barbarism ever waged with its own race — in which war this law was set up by Lentulus, Catiline, Cethegus, and Cassius, that all who could be safe with the city safe should be counted in the number of enemies, I have so borne myself, citizens, that you all be saved; and, when your enemies had thought there would survive only as many citizens as had stood out against an unbounded slaughter, and only as much of the city as the flame had been unable to reach, I have preserved both the city and the citizens entire and unharmed.
atque illae tamen omnes dissensiones erant eius modi quae non ad delendam sed ad commutandam rem publicam pertinerent. non illi nullam esse rem publicam sed in ea quae esset se esse principes, neque hanc urbem conflagrare sed se in hac urbe florere voluerunt. atque illae tamen omnes dissensiones, quarum nulla exitium rei publicae quaesivit, eius modi fuerunt ut non reconciliatione concordiae sed internicione civium diiudicatae sint. in hoc autem uno post hominum memoriam maximo crudelissimoque bello, quale bellum nulla umquam barbaria cum sua gente gessit, quo in bello lex haec fuit a Lentulo, Catilina, Cethego, Cassio constituta ut omnes qui salva urbe salvi esse possent in hostium numero ducerentur, ita me gessi, Quirites, ut salvi omnes conservaremini, et, cum hostes vestri tantum civium superfuturum putassent quantum infinitae caedi restitisset, tantum autem urbis quantum flamma obire non potuisset, et urbem et civis integros incolumisque servavi.
For so great deeds, citizens, I shall ask of you no reward of virtue, no badge of honour, no monument of praise, except the everlasting memory of this day. In your minds I wish all my triumphs, all the ornaments of honour, the monuments of glory, the badges of praise to be stored and placed. Nothing mute can please me, nothing silent, nothing of a kind that even the less worthy can attain. By your memory, citizens, my deeds will be nourished, by talk they will grow, by the monuments of letters they will grow old and gain strength; and that same day, which I hope will be eternal, has been propagated, I see, both for the safety of the city and for the memory of my consulship; and at one and the same time in this commonwealth two citizens have arisen, of whom the one bounded the limits of your empire not by regions of the earth but by regions of heaven, the other has saved the seat and dwelling-place of this empire.
quibus pro tantis rebus, Quirites, nullum ego a vobis praemium virtutis, nullum insigne honoris, nullum monumentum laudis postulabo praeterquam huius diei memoriam sempiternam. in animis ego vestris omnis triumphos meos, omnia ornamenta honoris, monumenta gloriae, laudis insignia condi et conlocari volo. nihil me mutum potest delectare, nihil tacitum, nihil denique eius modi quod etiam minus digni adsequi possint. memoria vestra, Quirites, nostrae res alentur, sermonibus crescent, litterarum monumentis inveterascent et conroborabuntur; eandemque diem intellego, quam spero aeternam fore, propagatam esse et ad salutem urbis et ad memoriam consulatus mei, unoque tempore in hac re publica duos civis exstitisse quorum alter finis vestri imperi non terrae sed caeli regionibus terminaret, alter huius imperi domicilium sedisque servaret.
But since the fortune and condition of the things I have done is not the same as that of those who waged foreign wars — because I must live with those whom I have conquered and subdued, while they have left their enemies either killed or crushed — it is yours, citizens, if rightly the deeds of the rest profit them, to provide that mine never harm me. For that the wicked and impious minds of most audacious men should not be able to harm you, I provided; that they not harm me, it is yours to provide. And yet, citizens, to me myself nothing now can be done of harm by them. For there is great defence in the loyal, which has been laid up for me in perpetuity; great dignity in the commonwealth, which will always silently defend me; great force of conscience, which they who neglect, in wishing to violate me, will give themselves away.
sed quoniam earum rerum quas ego gessi non eadem est fortuna atque condicio quae illorum qui externa bella gesserunt, quod mihi cum eis vivendum est quos vici ac subegi, illi hostis aut interfectos aut oppressos reliquerunt, vestrum est, Quirites, si ceteris facta sua recte prosunt, mihi mea ne quando obsint providere. mentes enim hominum audacissimorum sceleratae ac nefariae ne vobis nocere possent ego providi, ne mihi noceant vestrum est providere. quamquam, Quirites, mihi quidem ipsi nihil ab istis iam noceri potest. Magnum enim est in bonis praesidium quod mihi in perpetuum comparatum est, magna in re publica dignitas quae me semper tacita defendet, magna vis conscientiae quam qui neglegunt, cum me violare volent, se indicabunt.
For there is in us such a spirit, citizens, that we not only yield to no man’s audacity but even of our own motion always provoke the wicked. But if every assault of the domestic enemies, driven from you, shall turn itself upon me alone, you must look to it, citizens, on what condition you afterwards wish those to be who have offered themselves on behalf of your safety to all odium and to all dangers. As for me myself, what is there that can be added to the fruit of life — particularly when in your honour and in the glory of virtue I see nothing higher to which it would please me to ascend?
est enim nobis is animus, Quirites, ut non modo nullius audaciae cedamus sed etiam omnis improbos ultro semper lacessamus. quod si omnis impetus domesticorum hostium depulsus a vobis se in me unum converterit, vobis erit videndum, Quirites, qua condicione posthac eos esse velitis qui se pro salute vestra obtulerint invidiae periculisque omnibus: mihi quidem ipsi quid est quod iam ad vitae fructum possit adquiri, cum praesertim neque in honore vestro neque in gloria virtutis quicquam videam altius quo mihi libeat ascendere?
This I shall surely accomplish, citizens: that the things I have done in the consulship I shall as a private man defend and adorn; so that, if any odium has been undertaken in saving the commonwealth, it may hurt the envious, and may benefit me for glory. In short, I shall so conduct myself in the commonwealth that I shall always remember what I have done, and take care that those things may seem to have been done by virtue, not by chance. You, citizens, since now it is night, having venerated that Jupiter who is the guardian of this city and of yourselves, depart to your houses; and those, although now the danger has been driven off, defend nevertheless equally as on the previous night by guards and watches. That this may not have to be done by you longer, and that you may be able to be in everlasting peace, I shall provide, citizens.
illud perficiam profecto, Quirites, ut ea quae gessi in consulatu privatus tuear atque ornem, ut, si qua est invidia in conservanda re publica suscepta, laedat invidos, mihi valeat ad gloriam. denique ita me in re publica tractabo ut meminerim semper quae gesserim, curemque ut ea virtute non casu gesta esse videantur. vos, Quirites, quoniam iam est nox, venerati Iovem illum custodem huius urbis ac vestrum in vestra tecta discedite et ea, quamquam iam est periculum depulsum, tamen aeque ac priore nocte custodiis vigiliisque defendite. id ne vobis diutius faciendum sit atque ut in perpetua pace esse possitis providebo, Quirites.