Political Speeches (Oxford World's Classics) by Cicero

Author:Cicero [Cicero]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2006-03-09T05:00:00+00:00

IN CATILINAM II

[1] At long last, citizens, Lucius Catilina,* crazed with recklessness, panting with criminality, treacherously plotting the destruction of his country, and menacing you and this city with fire and the sword—this criminal we have expelled from Rome; or released; or followed with our farewells as he was leaving of his own accord. He has gone, departed, cleared off, escaped.* No longer will that grotesque monster plan the demolition of our city walls from inside those very walls. And we have indisputably beaten the one man who is at the head of this civil war. No longer, then, will that dagger of his be twisted between our ribs. In the Campus Martius, in the forum, in the senate-house, and in our own homes we will have nothing to fear. When he was driven from the city, he was dislodged from his point of vantage. So now we will be fighting a proper war in the open against an external enemy, with nothing to stop us. Without a doubt we destroyed him and won a magnificent victory when we turned him from secret plots to open banditry. [2] He has not taken with him, as he wished, a dagger covered in blood; he has departed with me still alive; I have wrenched his sword from his hand; and he has left the citizens unharmed and the city still standing—so just think of the sense of grief that must have overwhelmed and crushed him! He now lies prostrate, citizens, and realizes that he has been struck down and laid low. Again and again, surely, he is turning his eyes back towards this city, bewailing the fact that it has been snatched from his jaws. The city, on the other hand, seems to me delighted that it has vomited forth such a pestilence and spewed it out.

[3] But it may be that some of you will take the view that ought really to be the view of everyone, and criticize me severely for what my speech boasts of and glories in—the fact that I did not arrest so lethal an enemy, but allowed him to escape. However, the blame for that, citizens, lies not with me, but with the circumstances. Lucius Catilina ought long ago to have paid the supreme punishment and been executed, as the tradition of our ancestors, the strictness of my office, and the national interest demanded of me. But how many people do you think there were who refused to believe my allegations, how many who even spoke up for the offenders, how many who were so stupid as to imagine that the conspiracy did not exist, and how many who were so wicked as to give it their support? If I judged that by removing Lucius Catilina I could free you completely from danger, I would long ago have risked not only my popularity but even my life to remove him. [4] But at that time not even all of you were sufficiently convinced of the existence

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