All men who are eager to surpass the other animals ought to strive with all their power not to pass through life in silence, like the beasts, which nature has fashioned bent toward the ground and obedient to the belly. But all our force is set in mind and body: of the mind we use the command, of the body the service; the one we share with the gods, the other with the brutes. Therefore it seems to me more right to seek glory by the resources of intellect than of strength, and, since the very life we enjoy is short, to make the memory of ourselves as lasting as we can. For the glory of riches and beauty is fleeting and fragile; virtue is held bright and everlasting. But long was the great contest among mortals, whether military success advanced more by force of body or by virtue of mind. For both before you begin there is need of deliberation, and once you have deliberated, of timely action. So each, deficient in itself, needs the other’s help.

And so in the beginning kings — for on earth that was the first name of power — were divided: some trained the mind, others the body. Even then the life of men was conducted without greed; each was well content with his own. But afterward, once Cyrus in Asia, and the Spartans and Athenians in Greece, began to subdue cities and nations, to hold the lust of domination a cause for war, to reckon the greatest glory in the greatest empire — then at last, by trial and by action, it was found that in war the mind avails most. And if the mental virtue of kings and commanders held as strong in peace as in war, human affairs would run more even and more steady, and you would not see one thing carried off this way, another that, and all things shifting and thrown into confusion. For power is easily kept by the same arts by which at the outset it was won. But when in place of labor sloth, in place of restraint and fairness lust and arrogance have broken in, fortune is changed together with the character. So power passes always from the less good to the best. What men plow, sail, build — all obey virtue. But many mortals, given over to the belly and to sleep, untaught and uncultivated, have passed through life like travelers passing through; for these, surely against nature, the body was for pleasure, the soul a burden. Their life and their death I rate alike, since of both there is silence. But in very truth that man alone seems to me to live and to enjoy his soul who, bent on some task, seeks the fame of a brilliant deed or a noble art. But in the great abundance of things, nature shows to each a different road.

It is a fine thing to serve the commonwealth well; even to speak well is not absurd; in peace or in war one may become illustrious; and both those who have done deeds and those who have written the deeds of others — many are praised. And to me indeed, though by no means equal glory attends the writer and the doer of deeds, it still seems above all arduous to write history: first, because the deeds must be matched by the words; next, because most men, when you censure faults, suppose it said out of malice and envy, while when you record the great virtue and glory of good men, each takes calmly what he thinks easy for himself to do, but holds whatever lies beyond that to be invented, mere falsehood. But I, in my early youth, like most men, was carried by zeal toward public life, and there many things went against me. For in place of modesty, in place of self-restraint, in place of virtue, boldness, bribery, and greed were thriving. And though my spirit, unused to evil arts, spurned these, still amid such great vices my weak youth was held fast, corrupted by ambition; and though I dissented from the bad ways of the rest, no less did the craving for office harass me with the same ill fame and envy as the others.

And so when my spirit found rest from many miseries and dangers, and I resolved that my remaining years should be kept far from public life, it was not my design to wear out good leisure in apathy and sloth, nor to pass my time intent on tilling the field or on hunting — servile occupations; but, returning to that very undertaking and pursuit from which evil ambition had held me back, I resolved to write up the deeds of the Roman people piecemeal, as each seemed worthy of memory — the more so because my mind was free from hope, from fear, from the partisanships of public life. And so of the conspiracy of Catiline I shall give an account, as truthfully as I can, in few words; for that deed I judge memorable above all for the novelty of its crime and its danger. Of that man’s character a few things must be explained before I make a beginning of the narrative.

Lucius Catiline, born of noble stock, was of great force both of mind and of body, but of an evil and crooked nature. From his youth civil wars, slaughter, plunder, civil discord were welcome to him, and in these he exercised his young manhood. His body could endure hunger, cold, sleeplessness beyond what is credible to anyone. His mind was bold, cunning, shifting, a feigner and dissembler of anything you please, grasping at what was another’s, prodigal of his own, burning in his desires; of eloquence enough, of wisdom too little. His vast spirit craved always the immoderate, the incredible, the too lofty. After the despotism of Lucius Sulla, the greatest lust had seized him for seizing the commonwealth; and by what means he might attain it, provided he secured a throne for himself, he counted of no consequence. His fierce spirit was driven more and more day by day by want of family means and by the consciousness of his crimes, both of which he had increased by those arts I have mentioned above. He was spurred on, besides, by the corrupted morals of the state, which two evils — the worst and most at odds with each other, extravagance and greed — were plaguing. The matter itself seems to urge, since the occasion has reminded me of the state’s morals, to go back further and to set out in a few words the institutions of our forefathers at home and in war — how they held the commonwealth, and how great they left it, and how, gradually transformed, from the fairest and best it was made the worst and most shameful.

The city of Rome, as I have received the account, was founded and held at the beginning by Trojans, who, exiles with Aeneas as their leader, were wandering with no fixed homes, and with them the Aborigines, a rustic race of men, without laws, without authority, free and unbound. After these came together within one wall — of unlike stock, of differing speech, each living after his own fashion — it is past belief to relate how easily they coalesced: so in a short time a scattered and wandering multitude had by concord been made a state. But after their fortune, increased in citizens, in morals, in lands, seemed prosperous enough and strong enough — as most things mortal go — envy arose out of opulence. And so neighboring kings and peoples assailed them in war; a few of their friends gave aid, for the rest, struck with fear, held off from the danger. But the Romans, intent at home and in war, made haste, made ready, urged one another on, went to meet the enemy, shielded with arms their liberty, their fatherland, their parents. Afterward, when by valor they had driven off the dangers, they carried aid to their allies and friends, and won friendships more by bestowing than by receiving favors. Their rule was lawful; the name of their rule was kingly. Chosen men, whose bodies were weak with years but whose minds were strong in wisdom, took counsel for the commonwealth; these, whether from their age or from the likeness of their care, were called Fathers. Afterward, when kingly rule — which at first had been for the preserving of liberty and the increase of the commonwealth — turned itself into arrogance and despotism, they changed the custom and made for themselves yearly commands and two commanders apiece: in this way they thought the human spirit could least grow insolent through license.

But at that time each man began to exalt himself the more and to hold his talent the more ready at hand. For to kings the good are more suspect than the bad, and to them another’s virtue is always a thing to dread. But it is past belief to relate how much the state, once liberty was won, grew in a short time: so great a desire for glory had come upon it. First of all, the young men, as soon as they could endure war, learned the practice of soldiering through labor in the camp, and took their pleasure more in handsome arms and warhorses than in whores and banquets. And so to such men no labor was unaccustomed, no ground rough or steep, no armed foe to be dreaded: virtue had mastered all. But the greatest contest for glory was among themselves: each hastened to strike down a foe, to scale a wall, to be seen while he did such a deed. These things they reckoned riches, these good repute and great nobility. Greedy of praise, they were liberal of money; they wanted glory immense, riches honorable. I could recount in what places the Roman people with a small band routed the greatest forces of the enemy, what cities fortified by nature they took by fighting, did that matter not draw us too far from our undertaking.

But surely fortune rules in everything; she makes all things famous or obscure more from caprice than from truth. The deeds of the Athenians, as I judge, were ample and magnificent enough, yet somewhat less, for all that, than they are carried by report. But because there arose among them great talents of writers, throughout the world the deeds of the Athenians are celebrated as the greatest. So the virtue of those who acted is held as great as illustrious talents were able to exalt it in words. But to the Roman people such abundance was never given, because each wisest man was the busiest: no one exercised the mind apart from the body; each best man preferred to act rather than to speak, to have his own good deeds praised by others rather than himself to recount the deeds of others.

And so at home and in war good morals were cultivated; concord was greatest, greed least; right and good prevailed among them not by laws more than by nature. Quarrels, discords, enmities they practiced against the enemy; citizens with citizens contended over virtue. In the worship of the gods they were lavish, at home frugal, to their friends faithful. By these two arts — boldness in war, and, when peace had come, fairness — they cared for themselves and the commonwealth. Of these things I hold these the greatest proofs: that in war punishment was more often inflicted on those who had fought the enemy against orders and who, recalled, had withdrawn too slowly from the battle, than on those who had dared to abandon the standards or, beaten, to give up their ground; but in peace, that they conducted their rule more by kindnesses than by fear, and, when a wrong was done them, preferred to pardon rather than to prosecute it.

But when by labor and justice the commonwealth had grown — great kings subdued in war, savage nations and mighty peoples brought low by force, Carthage, the rival of Rome’s empire, perished root and branch, all seas and lands lying open — fortune began to rage and to throw all into confusion. Those who had easily borne toils, dangers, doubtful and harsh circumstances — to them leisure and riches, desirable at other times, became a burden and a misery. And so first the desire for money, then for power grew: these were, as it were, the stuff of all evils. For greed overturned faith, honesty, and the other good arts; in their place it taught arrogance, cruelty, to neglect the gods, to hold all things for sale. Ambition drove many mortals to become false — to keep one thing shut in the breast, another ready on the tongue; to value friendships and enmities not by their worth but by advantage; and to keep the face rather than the heart good. These at first grew little by little, and now and then were punished; afterward, when the contagion had spread like a plague, the state was transformed, and its rule, from the most just and best, was made cruel and unbearable.

But at first ambition more than greed worked upon the minds of men — a vice, yet one nearer to virtue. For glory, honor, and power the good man and the worthless alike long for; but the one strives by the true road, while the other, because good arts are wanting to him, presses on by tricks and deceptions. Greed has the passion for money, which no wise man has coveted: as though steeped in evil poisons, it unmans body and manly spirit; always boundless, insatiable, it is lessened neither by abundance nor by want. But after Lucius Sulla, having recovered the commonwealth by arms, brought good beginnings to bad ends, all men seized, all dragged off plunder; one coveted a house, another lands; the victors kept neither measure nor restraint, and did foul and cruel deeds against their fellow citizens. To this was added that Lucius Sulla, to make loyal to himself the army he had led in Asia, had kept it — against the custom of our forefathers — in luxury and too great indulgence. Pleasant, voluptuous places had easily softened in their leisure the fierce spirits of the soldiers. There first the army of the Roman people grew used to making love, to drinking, to admiring statues, painted panels, embossed plate; to plundering these from private and public alike, to stripping shrines, to defiling all things sacred and profane. And so those soldiers, once they had won their victory, left nothing to the vanquished. For prosperity wears down even the minds of the wise: little wonder that they, with their corrupted morals, set no limit on victory.

After riches began to be a mark of honor, and glory, power, and influence followed upon them, virtue began to dull, poverty to be counted a disgrace, integrity to be taken for ill will. And so out of riches extravagance and greed, with arrogance, invaded the young: they seized, they squandered, they set little store by their own and coveted what was another’s; modesty and chastity, things divine and human alike, they held all in common, with nothing of scruple or restraint. It is worth the trouble, once you have come to know the houses and country estates built up to the scale of cities, to go and look at the temples of the gods that our forefathers, the most god-fearing of mortals, made. But they adorned the shrines of the gods with piety, their own houses with glory, and took from the vanquished nothing but the license to do wrong. These, on the contrary, the most worthless of men, by the utmost wickedness wrested from their allies all that the bravest men, when victors, had left them — just as though to do wrong were the one true use of power.

For why should I recount those things which to no one but those who saw them are believable: that by a good many private men mountains have been leveled and seas paved over? To these men, it seems to me, riches were a plaything: for what they might have kept with honor, they hastened to squander in shame. But the lust for debauchery, for gluttony, and the rest of such indulgence had come on no less: men submitted to a woman’s part, women set their chastity out for sale; for the sake of the table they ransacked land and sea; they slept before the desire for sleep had come; they waited not on hunger or thirst, on cold or weariness, but anticipated all by self-indulgence. These things inflamed the young to crimes once their family means had failed: a spirit steeped in evil arts could not easily go without its lusts, and so was given over the more lavishly, by every means, to gain and to spending.

In a state so great and so corrupt, Catiline kept about him — the easiest thing in the world to do — throngs of every shamefulness and crime, like a bodyguard. For whoever was shameless, an adulterer, a glutton, who had torn his patrimony to shreds by hand, by belly, by lust, and whoever had heaped up a great debt to buy off some disgrace or crime; besides, all from every quarter who were murderers of kin, profaners of the sacred, men convicted in the courts or fearing conviction for their deeds; on top of these, men whom hand and tongue fed by perjury or by the blood of citizens; in short, all whom shame, want, and a guilty conscience harried — these were Catiline’s closest and most intimate friends. And if anyone even free of guilt had fallen into his friendship, by daily intercourse and enticements he was easily made the equal and the like of the rest. But it was above all the intimacy of the young that he sought: their minds, still soft and unsettled, were caught by his wiles without difficulty. For as each one’s passion blazed according to his years, to some he furnished whores, for others he bought dogs and horses; in short, he spared neither his purse nor his good name, so long as he made them beholden and loyal to him. I know there were some who judged thus: that the young men who frequented Catiline’s house kept their chastity with too little honor; but this report drew its strength from other things rather than from any proof that the thing was so.

Already as a young man Catiline had committed many unspeakable debaucheries — with a girl of noble birth, with a priestess of Vesta, and others of this kind against law human and divine. At last, seized with love for Aurelia Orestilla, in whom no good man ever praised anything but her beauty, because she hesitated to marry him, fearing a grown stepson, it is believed for certain that he murdered his own son and so made his house empty for the wicked marriage. And this thing, indeed, seems to me above all to have been the cause of his hastening the crime. For his unclean spirit, at war with gods and men, could be calmed neither by waking nor by rest: so did conscience lay waste his agitated mind. And so his color was bloodless, his eyes foul, his step now quick, now slow: in plain truth, madness was in his face and look.

But the young men whom, as we said above, he had lured in, he schooled in evil deeds in many ways. Out of their number he supplied false witnesses and forgers of seals; he taught them to hold cheap their good faith, their fortunes, their perils; afterward, when he had worn away their reputation and their shame, he commanded other, greater things. If a reason for wrongdoing was not at hand for the moment, none the less he would entrap and cut down the innocent as well as the guilty: indeed, lest hand or spirit grow numb through idleness, he was wicked and cruel for nothing, for its own sake. Trusting in these friends and accomplices — and at the same time because debt was huge throughout every land, and because most of Sulla’s soldiers, having spent their own too freely and remembering the old plunder and victory, longed for civil war — Catiline formed the plan of crushing the commonwealth. In Italy there was no army; Gnaeus Pompey was waging war in the farthest lands; for himself, as he sought the consulship, there was great hope; the Senate was not at all on guard: everything was safe and calm — but that was precisely the opportunity for Catiline.

And so about the Kalends of June, in the consulship of Lucius Caesar and Gaius Figulus, he began first to approach men one by one, urging some, sounding out others; he set before them his own resources, the unprepared commonwealth, the great rewards of conspiracy. When the things he wished were sufficiently ascertained, he called together into one place all in whom the greatest need and the most boldness were found. There gathered, of the senatorial order, Publius Lentulus Sura, Publius Autronius, Lucius Cassius Longinus, Gaius Cethegus, Publius and Servius Sulla, the sons of Servius, Lucius Vargunteius, Quintus Annius, Marcus Porcius Laeca, Lucius Bestia, Quintus Curius; besides, from the equestrian order, Marcus Fulvius Nobilior, Lucius Statilius, Publius Gabinius Capito, Gaius Cornelius; and on top of these, many from the colonies and free towns, men noble at home. There were besides a good many nobles, sharers in this plan somewhat more secretly, whom the hope of domination urged on more than want or any other necessity. For the rest, most of the young, but especially the young of noble birth, favored Catiline’s undertakings; men who had the means to live in leisure either splendidly or softly preferred the uncertain to the certain, war to peace. There were also at that time those who believed that Marcus Licinius Crassus was not ignorant of the plan; that, because Gnaeus Pompey, whom he hated, was leading a great army, he wished anyone’s power to grow against that man’s might, while trusting at the same time that, if the conspiracy prevailed, he would easily be first man among the conspirators.

But before this a few had likewise conspired against the commonwealth, among them Catiline. Of this I shall speak as truthfully as I can. In the consulship of Lucius Tullus and Manius Lepidus, Publius Autronius and Publius Sulla, consuls-elect, had been arraigned under the laws against electoral bribery and had paid the penalty. A little later Catiline, on trial for extortion, had been barred from seeking the consulship, because he had not been able to declare his candidacy within the lawful days. There was at the same time Gnaeus Piso, a young noble, of the utmost boldness, needy, a man of faction, whom want and bad character spurred toward throwing the commonwealth into turmoil. With this man Catiline and Autronius, having shared their plan, were preparing about the Nones of December to kill the consuls Lucius Cotta and Lucius Torquatus on the Capitol on the Kalends of January, and themselves, having seized the rods of office, to send Piso with an army to take possession of the two Spains. The plan having been found out, they had again shifted the design of murder to the Nones of February. By then they were contriving destruction not only for the consuls but for most of the senators. And had Catiline not been too hasty in giving his accomplices the signal in front of the Senate house, on that day the worst deed since the founding of the city of Rome would have been carried out. Because the armed men had not yet gathered in force, that circumstance broke up the plan.

Afterward Piso was sent into Nearer Spain as quaestor with propraetorian power, through the efforts of Crassus, because he knew him to be a bitter enemy of Gnaeus Pompey. Yet the Senate had not given the province unwillingly; for it wished a vile man far from the commonwealth, and at the same time because a good many decent men thought him a safeguard, and even then the power of Pompey was a thing to dread. But this Piso was killed in his province, while on the march, by the Spanish horsemen whom he was leading in his army. There are those who say thus: that the barbarians could not endure his unjust, arrogant, cruel commands; others, however: that those horsemen, old and loyal clients of Gnaeus Pompey, had set upon Piso by his wish; that the Spaniards had never before done such a deed, but had borne many harsh commands in the past. We shall leave that matter undecided. Of the earlier conspiracy enough has been said.

When Catiline saw that those whom I mentioned a moment ago had assembled, although he had often dealt much with them one by one, still, believing it would serve to address and exhort them all together, he withdrew into a secluded part of the house, and there, with all witnesses removed far off, made a speech of this kind: "Were your courage and loyalty not proven to me, in vain would the chance have fallen out so well; great hope, domination within our grasp, would have come to nothing, nor would I, through cowards or empty spirits, be reaching for the uncertain in place of the certain. But because in many great crises I have found you brave and faithful to me, my spirit has dared to undertake the greatest and fairest of deeds — and at the same time because I have understood that your goods and evils are the same as mine; for to want the same and to reject the same — that, in the end, is firm friendship. But what I have turned over in my mind, you have all heard already, severally, before now. Yet day by day my spirit is the more inflamed, when I consider what the condition of our life is to be, unless we ourselves lay claim to our liberty. For ever since the commonwealth fell into the right and jurisdiction of a few men of power, it is to them that kings and tetrarchs are always tributary, peoples and nations pay tax; all the rest of us — the active, the good, noble and ignoble — have been the mob, without favor, without standing, beholden to those to whom, if the commonwealth had its strength, we should be objects of dread. And so all favor, power, office, riches are with them or where they wish them; to us they have left dangers, defeats at the polls, prosecutions, and poverty. How long, in the end, will you endure these things, bravest of men? Is it not better to die through valor than to lose a wretched and dishonored life in disgrace, once you have been the plaything of another’s arrogance? But in very truth — by the faith of gods and men! — the victory is in our hands: our youth is in its vigor, our spirit is strong; with them, by contrast, all things have grown old together with their years and their riches. Only the beginning is needed; the rest the situation will provide. For what mortal with a manly spirit can bear that they overflow with riches, which they pour out building over the sea and leveling mountains, while we lack the means even for necessities? That they join together two houses or more, while we have nowhere any hearth of our own? Though they buy paintings, statues, embossed plate, tear down the new and build other things, in short by every means drag money about and rack it, still with all their extravagance they cannot conquer their riches. But ours is want at home, debt abroad, evil circumstances, a hope much harsher: in the end, what have we left but a wretched breath of life? Why, then, do you not rouse yourselves? Look — there, there, the liberty you have so often longed for, and besides it riches, honor, glory, lie before your eyes; fortune has set all these as prizes for the victors. The situation, the moment, the dangers, our destitution, the splendid spoils of war exhort you more than any speech of mine. Use me as your commander or as your soldier! Neither my spirit nor my body shall fail you. These very things, as I hope, I shall do as consul together with you — unless perhaps my spirit deceives me and you are readier to be slaves than to rule."

When these things had been taken in by men who had evils in abundance, but no means and no good hope at all, although merely to disturb the peace seemed to them great pay, still most of them demanded that he set out what the terms of the war would be, what rewards they were to seek by arms, what resources or hope they had, and where. Then Catiline promised cancellation of debts, proscription of the rich, magistracies, priesthoods, plunder, all the other things that war and the caprice of victors bring. Besides, he said, in Nearer Spain was Piso, in Mauretania with an army Publius Sittius of Nuceria, sharers in his plan; that Gaius Antonius was standing for the consulship, whom he hoped would be his colleague, a man both intimate with him and hemmed in by every kind of obligation; with him as consul he would make the beginning of action. On top of this he railed with abuse at all the good men, while naming and praising each one of his own; he reminded one of his poverty, another of his craving, several of their peril or disgrace, many of the Sullan victory, to whom it had been plunder. When he saw the spirits of all eager, having urged them to hold his candidacy as their concern, he dismissed the gathering.

There were at that time those who said that Catiline, when he had made his speech, as he was binding the partners of his crime to an oath, carried round in bowls human blood mixed with wine: then, when after the curse all had tasted of it, as is the custom in solemn rites, that he disclosed his plan; and this he is said to have done so that they might be the more loyal to one another, each privy to the other in so great a crime. Some judged that this and much else besides were invented by those who believed that the ill will against Cicero, which arose afterward, would be softened by the atrocity of the crime of those who had paid the penalty. To us this matter, given its magnitude, is too little ascertained.

But in that conspiracy was Quintus Curius, born in no obscure station, covered over with shameful acts and crimes, whom the censors had removed from the Senate for his disgrace. In this man there was no less emptiness than boldness: he could neither keep silent what he had heard, nor conceal his own crimes; in short, he held nothing of weight, whether to say or to do. He had with Fulvia, a woman of noble birth, an old habit of debauchery. When he grew less welcome to her, because in his poverty he could lavish less, suddenly, boasting, he began to promise her seas and mountains, and at times to threaten her with the sword if she were not submissive to him, in the end to carry on more fiercely than he was wont. But Fulvia, once she learned the cause of Curius’s strange behavior, did not keep so great a danger to the commonwealth hidden, but, suppressing her source, told a good many people of Catiline’s conspiracy, whatever she had heard and however. This above all kindled men’s zeal for entrusting the consulship to Marcus Tullius Cicero. For before this most of the nobility seethed with envy, and believed the consulship would be, as it were, polluted if a new man, however outstanding, attained it. But when the danger came, envy and arrogance took second place.

And so, when the elections had been held, Marcus Tullius and Gaius Antonius were proclaimed consuls. This outcome had at first shaken the partners of the conspiracy. Yet Catiline’s frenzy was not lessened; day by day he set more in motion: he readied arms throughout Italy at suitable points, and money borrowed on his own credit or his friends’ he carried to Faesulae, to one Manlius, who was afterward the chief instigator of the war. At that time he is said to have enlisted very many men of every sort, and even a number of women, who at first had supported enormous expenses by the prostitution of their bodies, but afterward, when age had set a limit only to their gain and not to their extravagance, had run up a great debt. Through these women Catiline believed he could stir up the city slaves, set fire to the city, and either attach their husbands to himself or kill them.

But among them was Sempronia, who had often committed many deeds of a man’s boldness. This woman was fortunate enough in birth and beauty, and besides in her husband and children; learned in Greek and Latin letters, able to play the lyre and to dance more elegantly than an honest woman needs, with much else besides that is the equipment of luxury. But to her everything was always dearer than honor and chastity; whether she was the more sparing of her money or of her good name, you could not easily tell; her lust was so inflamed that she sought out men more often than she was sought. But she had often before now betrayed her word, forsworn a debt, been privy to murder; by extravagance and want she had plunged headlong to ruin. Yet her talent was not to be despised: she could compose verses, raise a laugh, employ speech now modest, now tender, now wanton; in short, much wit and much charm were in her.

With these things made ready, Catiline none the less sought the consulship for the coming year, hoping that, if he were elected, he would easily use Antonius according to his wish. Nor meanwhile was he quiet, but in every way he laid snares for Cicero. Yet to the other, for taking precautions, neither craft nor cunning was wanting. For from the beginning of his consulship, by promising much through Fulvia, he had brought it about that Quintus Curius, of whom I spoke a little before, betrayed Catiline’s plans to him; and besides he had induced his colleague Antonius, by a bargain over a province, not to take a stand against the commonwealth; about himself he secretly kept guards of friends and clients. When the day of the elections came, and neither Catiline’s candidacy nor the snares he had set for the consuls in the Campus turned out well, he resolved to make war and to try all extremes, since what he had attempted in secret had come out harsh and ugly.

And so he sent Gaius Manlius to Faesulae and to that part of Etruria, one Septimius of Camerinum into the Picene country, Gaius Julius into Apulia, and besides, each to a different place, whomever he believed would be useful to him anywhere. Meanwhile at Rome he was setting many things in motion at once: laying snares for the consuls, preparing fires, posting armed men at advantageous points; he himself went armed and ordered others to do likewise, urging them always to be alert and ready; day and night he hurried and kept watch, wearied neither by sleeplessness nor by toil. At last, when for all his stirring nothing went forward, again at dead of night he summoned the chiefs of the conspiracy to Marcus Porcius Laeca, and there, after much complaint of their inaction, he told them that he had sent Manlius ahead to the multitude he had readied for taking up arms, and others likewise to other suitable places to begin the war, and that he himself was eager to set out for the army, if first he had crushed Cicero, who was greatly obstructing his plans.

And so, while the rest were terrified and wavering, Gaius Cornelius, a Roman knight, pledged his service, and with him Lucius Vargunteius, a senator, resolved to enter that night, a little later, with armed men, to Cicero, as though to pay him a morning call, and to stab him unawares and unprepared in his own house. When Curius understood how great a danger hung over the consul, in haste, through Fulvia, he announced to Cicero the treachery being prepared. So they, shut out at the door, had taken up so great a crime in vain. Meanwhile Manlius in Etruria was stirring up the common people, eager for revolution from their destitution and at the same time from resentment at the wrong they had suffered — for under Sulla’s tyranny they had lost their fields and all their goods — and besides, brigands of every kind, of whom there was great abundance in that region, and some from the Sullan colonies, to whom lust and extravagance had left nothing of their great plunder.

When these things were reported to Cicero, disturbed by the twofold trouble — that he could no longer protect the city from plots by his private resources, nor had he ascertained well enough how large Manlius’s army was or with what design — he referred the matter to the Senate, already stirred up before this by the rumors of the crowd. And so, as is usually done in a desperate crisis, the Senate decreed that the consuls should see to it that the commonwealth take no harm. That power, by Roman custom, is the greatest the Senate grants to a magistrate: to raise an army, to wage war, to coerce allies and citizens by every means, to hold supreme command and jurisdiction at home and in the field; otherwise, without the people’s order, the consul has the right to none of these things.

A few days later Lucius Saenius, a senator, read out in the Senate a letter which he said had been brought to him from Faesulae, in which it was written that Gaius Manlius had taken up arms with a great multitude on the sixth day before the Kalends of November. At the same time — as is usual in such a case — some reported portents and prodigies, others that gatherings were being held, arms carried about, and at Capua and in Apulia a slave war set in motion. And so by decree of the Senate Quintus Marcius Rex was sent to Faesulae, Quintus Metellus Creticus into Apulia and the country round about — both of these were commanders waiting outside the city, kept from their triumphs by the slander of a few, whose custom it was to sell everything, honorable and dishonorable alike — but the praetors Quintus Pompeius Rufus to Capua, Quintus Metellus Celer into the Picene country, and these were permitted to raise an army to suit the occasion and the danger. Besides, if anyone should give information about the conspiracy that had been formed against the commonwealth, they decreed as a reward, for a slave his freedom and a hundred thousand sesterces, for a free man immunity in the affair and two hundred thousand sesterces; and likewise that the bands of gladiators should be distributed at Capua and among the other towns according to the resources of each, that at Rome watches should be kept throughout the whole city, and that the lesser magistrates should be set over them.

By these things the state was thrown into alarm and the face of the city was changed. Out of the utmost gaiety and wantonness, which the long quiet had bred, suddenly a universal gloom came on: men hurried, trembled, trusted neither any place nor any man enough, neither waged war nor kept peace, each measuring the danger by his own fear. Besides, the women, upon whom an unwonted dread of war had come by reason of the greatness of the state, beat their breasts, stretched suppliant hands to heaven, pitied their little children, asked questions of everything, took fright at every rumor, and, laying aside their pride and their pleasures, despaired of themselves and their country. But Catiline’s cruel spirit kept pressing those same designs, although defenses were being prepared and he himself had been arraigned under the Plautian law by Lucius Paulus. At last, for the sake of dissembling, or of clearing himself, as though he had been provoked by some quarrel, he came into the Senate. Then Marcus Tullius the consul, whether fearing his presence or moved by anger, delivered a brilliant speech, useful to the commonwealth, which he afterward published in writing. But when he had sat down, Catiline, prepared as he was to dissemble everything, with downcast face and suppliant voice began to beg the Fathers not to believe anything about him rashly: that he was sprung from such a family, and had so ordered his life from youth, that he had every good thing to hope for; that they should not suppose he, a patrician, whose own services and his ancestors’ to the Roman plebs were very many, had any need of a ruined commonwealth — while it was saved by Marcus Tullius, a lodger-citizen of the city of Rome. When he added other abuse to this, all shouted him down, calling him an enemy and a parricide. Then he, in a fury: "Since indeed I am hemmed in by my enemies and driven headlong," he said, "I shall quench my own fire with general ruin."

Then he flung himself out of the Senate house and home. There, turning much over in his mind — since neither did the snares against the consul go forward, and he saw that the city was guarded against fire by the watches — and believing it best to enlarge his army and, before the legions could be enrolled, to seize beforehand many things that would serve in war, at dead of night he set out with a few men to Manlius’s camp. But to Cethegus and Lentulus and the rest, whose ready boldness he knew, he gave charge: by whatever means they could, to strengthen the resources of the faction, to hasten the snares against the consul, to prepare murder, fires, and the other deeds of war; he himself would presently approach the city with a great army. While these things were being done at Rome, Gaius Manlius sent envoys from his number to Marcius Rex with instructions of this kind:

"We call gods and men to witness, commander, that we have taken up arms neither against our country nor to bring danger upon others, but so that our bodies might be safe from wrong — we who, wretched and destitute through the violence and cruelty of the moneylenders, are most of us without a country, and all of us stripped of repute and fortune. Nor was any one of us allowed, by the custom of our forefathers, to make use of the law, nor, once his patrimony was lost, to keep his person free: so great was the savagery of the moneylenders and of the praetor. Often your forefathers, in pity for the Roman plebs, relieved its want by their decrees; and most recently, within our own memory, because of the magnitude of debt, with all good men consenting, silver was paid off in copper. Often the plebs itself, moved either by a passion for mastery or by the arrogance of the magistrates, took up arms and seceded from the Fathers. But we seek neither power nor riches — the things for whose sake all wars and struggles among mortals exist — but liberty, which no good man gives up except together with his life. We implore you and the Senate: take thought for wretched citizens, restore the protection of the law that the praetor’s injustice has snatched away, and do not lay upon us the necessity of asking by what manner we may perish best avenging our own blood!"

To this Quintus Marcius replied: if they wished to seek anything from the Senate, let them lay down their arms and go to Rome as suppliants; the Senate of the Roman people had always been of such mildness and mercy that no one had ever sought help from it in vain. But Catiline, from the road, sent letters to many men of consular rank, and besides to every man of the best sort: that he, hemmed in by false charges, since he could not withstand the faction of his enemies, was yielding to fortune and setting out into exile at Massilia — not because he was conscious of so great a crime, but so that the commonwealth might be at peace, and that no sedition might arise out of his own struggle. Far different from these was a letter that Quintus Catulus read out in the Senate, which he said had been delivered to him in Catiline’s name. A copy of it is written below:

"Lucius Catiline to Quintus Catulus. Your outstanding good faith, proven by the event and welcome to me in my great perils, lends confidence to my appeal. For which reason I have resolved to prepare no defense for my new course; an explanation, springing from no guilty conscience, I have determined to set forth — and, so help me god, you may know it to be true. Provoked by wrongs and insults, because, robbed of the fruit of my labor and industry, I could not attain a position of dignity, I took up, after my custom, the public cause of the wretched — not that I could not have paid the debts in my own name out of my possessions (and Orestilla’s generosity would have discharged those in others’ names from her own and her daughter’s means), but because I saw unworthy men dignified with office, and felt myself shut out by a false suspicion. On this account I have pursued hopes — honorable enough, given my plight — of preserving what dignity remained to me. Though I wished to write more, word has come that force is being readied against me. Now I commend Orestilla to you and entrust her to your protection; defend her from wrong, I beg you by your own children! Farewell!"

But Catiline himself, after lingering a few days with Gaius Flaminius in the territory of Arretium, while he furnished with arms the neighborhood already stirred up, made for Manlius’s camp with the rods and the other insignia of command. When this was learned at Rome, the Senate judged Catiline and Manlius public enemies, and set for the rest of the multitude a day before which they might lay down their arms without penalty — except for those condemned on capital charges. Besides, it decreed that the consuls should hold a levy, that Antonius with an army should make haste to pursue Catiline, and that Cicero should be a guard to the city. At that time the empire of the Roman people seemed to me by far the most pitiable of all things. Though everything from the rising to the setting of the sun, subdued by arms, obeyed it, and at home leisure and riches — which mortals reckon the chief goods — flowed in abundance, there were nevertheless citizens who, with obstinate hearts, were set on destroying themselves and the commonwealth. For, despite two decrees of the Senate, out of so great a number not one, drawn by the reward, had disclosed the conspiracy, nor had a single man departed from Catiline’s camp: so great a force of the disease, like a wasting plague, had invaded the minds of most of the citizens.

Nor was the mind disaffected only in those who had been privy to the conspiracy, but the whole common people, from a passion for revolution, approved Catiline’s undertakings. This, indeed, it seemed to do after its own fashion. For always in a state those who have no means envy the good, exalt the bad, hate the old, long for the new; out of hatred of their own lot they are eager that all things be changed; on turmoil and sedition they feed without a care, since poverty is easily borne with nothing to lose. But the city populace — that, indeed, was headlong, for many reasons. First of all, those who everywhere stood out most in infamy and insolence, and likewise others who through disgrace had lost their patrimonies, in short all whom shame or crime had driven from home — these had flowed together into Rome as into a sink. Then many, remembering the Sullan victory — since they saw some common soldiers become senators, others so rich that they passed their lives in royal fare and style — each hoped such things for himself from victory, if he were under arms. Besides, the young men who in the country had endured poverty by the wage of their hands, drawn out by private and public doles, had preferred idleness in the city to thankless toil. These and all the rest the public ill kept fed. So it is the less to be wondered at that needy men, of bad character and boundless expectation, took counsel for the commonwealth just as they did for themselves. Besides, those whose parents, by Sulla’s victory, had been proscribed, their goods seized, their rights of citizenship curtailed, awaited the outcome of war in no different spirit. On top of this, whoever belonged to any party other than the Senate’s preferred that the commonwealth be thrown into confusion rather than that they themselves count for less. This evil, indeed, had returned into the state after many years.

For after, in the consulship of Gnaeus Pompey and Marcus Crassus, the tribunician power was restored, young men who had gained the highest power, men of fierce age and spirit, began by accusing the Senate to stir up the plebs, then to inflame it further by largesse and promises, and so to make themselves famous and powerful. Against them most of the nobility strove with all its might, under the show of the Senate, for its own greatness. For — to tell the truth in few words — after those times whoever stirred up the commonwealth did so under honorable names: some, as if defending the rights of the people, others, that the Senate’s authority might stand highest; and, feigning the public good, each contended for his own power. And in them there was neither restraint nor limit to the strife: each side used its victory cruelly.

But after Gnaeus Pompey was sent to the war at sea and against Mithridates, the strength of the plebs was diminished, the power of the few grew. They held the magistracies, the provinces, and everything else; themselves untouched, flourishing, they lived without fear and terrified the rest with prosecutions, so that during their own magistracies they might handle the plebs more quietly. But as soon as, in this uncertain state of things, a hope of revolution was offered, the old contest roused their spirits. And if in the first battle Catiline had come off the stronger or on even terms, surely a great disaster and calamity would have crushed the commonwealth; nor would those who had won the victory have been allowed to enjoy it for long, but, from the exhausted and drained, one more powerful would have wrung away their command and their liberty. There were, nevertheless, outside the conspiracy a good many who set out to join Catiline at the start. Among them was Fulvius, a senator’s son, whom his father, having dragged him back from the road, ordered to be put to death. In the same days at Rome Lentulus, as Catiline had directed, was soliciting whomever he believed, by character or by circumstance, suited to revolution — and not only citizens, but every kind of men whatever, provided only they could be of use for the war.

And so he gave the task to one Publius Umbrenus: to seek out the envoys of the Allobroges and, if he could, to drive them into partnership in the war, judging that, weighed down by debt both public and private — and besides, because the Gallic nation was by nature warlike — they could easily be brought to such a plan. Umbrenus, because he had done business in Gaul, was known to most of the chiefs of the communities, and knew them. And so without delay, as soon as he caught sight of the envoys in the Forum, after asking a few things about the state of their community and, as if grieving over its plight, he began to inquire what outcome they hoped for such great evils. When he saw them complain of the greed of the magistrates, accuse the Senate because there was no help in it, and look for death as the remedy of their miseries: "But I," he said, "if only you are willing to be men, will show you a way by which you may escape these great evils." When he had said this, the Allobroges, raised to the highest hope, begged Umbrenus to take pity on them: that nothing was so harsh or so hard that they would not do it most eagerly, provided the thing freed their community from debt. He led them into the house of Decimus Brutus, because it was near the Forum and, on account of Sempronia, not foreign to the plan; for Brutus at that time was away from Rome. Besides, he summoned Gabinius, that the conversation might carry greater weight. In his presence he disclosed the conspiracy, named the accomplices, and besides many innocent men of every sort, so that the envoys might take greater heart. Then, when they had promised their help, he sent them home.

But the Allobroges long held in doubt what plan they should adopt. On the one side was their debt, their appetite for war, great pay in the hope of victory; on the other, greater resources, safe counsels, and, in place of an uncertain hope, sure rewards. As they turned these things over, at last the fortune of the commonwealth prevailed. And so to Quintus Fabius Sanga, whose patronage their community chiefly enjoyed, they disclosed the whole matter as they had learned it. Cicero, having learned the plan through Sanga, instructed the envoys to feign zeal for the conspiracy vigorously, to approach the others, to promise freely, and to take pains to catch them as red-handed as possible.

At about the same time there was unrest in Nearer and Farther Gaul, and likewise in the Picene, Bruttian, and Apulian country. For those whom Catiline had earlier sent out were doing everything at once, recklessly and as if in madness. By nightly meetings, by carrying arms and weapons about, by hurrying and stirring up everything, they had produced more fear than danger. Of that number Quintus Metellus Celer, the praetor, had cast a good many into chains by decree of the Senate after hearing their cases, and likewise in Nearer Gaul Gaius Murena, who as legate was in charge of that province.

But at Rome Lentulus, with the rest who were chiefs of the conspiracy, having made ready, as it seemed, considerable forces, had arranged that, once Catiline had reached the Faesulan country with his army, Lucius Bestia, tribune of the plebs, should hold a public meeting and complain of Cicero’s measures, laying the odium of a most grievous war on the best of consuls; and that at this signal, on the following night, the rest of the conspiratorial multitude should each carry out his own task. And these tasks were said to be divided thus: that Statilius and Gabinius, with a large band, should set fire to twelve points of the city at once, so that in the confusion access to the consul and the others against whom plots were laid might be made easier; that Cethegus should besiege Cicero’s door and assault him by force; that others should take others, but that the sons of the households, of whom the greatest part were of noble birth, should kill their fathers; and that, when all had been thrown into panic by slaughter and fire, they should break out to join Catiline. Amid these preparations and resolutions Cethegus was forever complaining of his accomplices’ inaction: that by hesitating and putting off the days they were spoiling great opportunities; that in such a peril there was need of deeds, not of debate, and that he himself, if a few would help, while the others hung back, would make an assault on the Senate house. Fierce by nature, vehement, ready with his hand, he reckoned the greatest good to lie in speed.

But the Allobroges, by Cicero’s instruction, met the others through Gabinius. From Lentulus, Cethegus, Statilius, and likewise Cassius they demanded an oath under seal to carry back to their countrymen; otherwise these could not easily be driven to so great an undertaking. The rest, suspecting nothing, gave it; Cassius promised that he himself would come there shortly, and set out from the city a little before the envoys. Lentulus sent with them one Titus Volturcius of Croton, so that the Allobroges, before they went home, might confirm the alliance with Catiline by an exchange of pledges. He himself gave Volturcius a letter to Catiline, of which a copy is written below: "Who I am, you will learn from the man I have sent to you. See that you consider in how great a calamity you are, and remember that you are a man! Consider what your situation requires! Seek help from all, even from the lowest!" Besides, he gave him verbal instructions: since Catiline had been judged a public enemy by the Senate, on what reasoning did he reject the slaves? In the city the things he had ordered were ready; let him not hesitate to draw nearer himself.

These things so arranged, on the night fixed for their departure, Cicero, fully informed through the envoys, ordered the praetors Lucius Valerius Flaccus and Gaius Pomptinus to seize the company of the Allobroges by an ambush at the Mulvian bridge. He disclosed the whole matter for whose sake they were sent; the rest he left them to handle as the need of action required. They, being military men, having posted their guards without commotion, as had been instructed, secretly occupied the bridge. When the envoys with Volturcius had come to that spot and at once a shout arose from both sides, the Gauls, quickly grasping the plan, surrendered to the praetors without delay; Volturcius at first, having urged on the rest, defended himself with his sword against the crowd, then, when he was abandoned by the envoys, after first appealing much to Pomptinus for his life, because he was known to him, at last, fearful and despairing of his life, gave himself up to the praetors as though to enemies.

These things accomplished, everything was quickly reported to the consul by messengers. But great anxiety and joy together took hold of him. For he rejoiced, understanding that with the conspiracy laid bare the state had been rescued from danger; yet on the other hand he was anxious, in doubt what ought to be done, now that citizens of such standing had been caught in the greatest crime: he believed their punishment would be a burden to him, their impunity the ruin of the commonwealth. And so, his mind steadied, he ordered Lentulus, Cethegus, Statilius, Gabinius, and likewise Caeparius of Terracina — who was preparing to set out for Apulia to rouse the slaves — to be summoned to him. The rest came without delay; Caeparius, having left home a little before, had fled the city on learning of the disclosure. The consul, holding Lentulus himself by the hand, because he was praetor, led him into the Senate, and ordered the rest to be brought under guard to the temple of Concord. There he convened the Senate, and before a great gathering of that order he brought in Volturcius with the envoys; he ordered the praetor Flaccus to bring to the same place the casket with the letters he had received from the envoys.

Volturcius, questioned about his journey, about the letters, and finally what plan he had had and for what reason, at first invented other things and dissembled about the conspiracy; afterward, when he was ordered to speak under public guarantee, he disclosed everything as it had been done, and explained that he had been enlisted as a partner by Gabinius and Caeparius a few days before, and knew no more than the envoys; only that he was accustomed to hear from Gabinius that Publius Autronius, Servius Sulla, Lucius Vargunteius, and many others besides were in the conspiracy. The Gauls confessed the same, and convicted Lentulus, for all his dissembling, beyond the letters, by the talk he had been wont to hold: that from the Sibylline books a kingship at Rome was foretold for three Cornelii; that Cinna and Sulla had been before, and he was the third for whom it was fated to master the city; and besides, that this was the twentieth year since the burning of the Capitol, which the soothsayers had often answered, from the prodigies, would be bloody with civil war. And so, when the letters had been read through, after all had first recognized their own seals, the Senate decreed that Lentulus, having resigned his magistracy, and the rest likewise should be held in free custody. And so Lentulus was handed over to Publius Lentulus Spinther, who was then aedile, Cethegus to Quintus Cornificius, Statilius to Gaius Caesar, Gabinius to Marcus Crassus, Caeparius — for he had been dragged back a little before from flight — to the senator Gnaeus Terentius.

Meanwhile the common people, when the conspiracy was laid bare — they who at first, greedy for revolution, had favored war too much — with changed mind cursed Catiline’s designs and exalted Cicero to the skies, and, as though rescued from slavery, gave themselves to joy and gladness. For they reckoned the other deeds of war would bring plunder rather than loss, but a burning to be cruel, unrestrained, and most calamitous to themselves, since for them all their resources lay in daily use and the clothing of the body. After that day a certain Lucius Tarquinius had been brought before the Senate, who, they said, had been dragged back from the road as he set out to join Catiline. When he said he would give information about the conspiracy if a public guarantee were given, and was ordered by the consul to declare what he knew, he informed the Senate of much the same as Volturcius — of the fires prepared, of the slaughter of the good men, of the enemy’s march; besides, that he had been sent by Marcus Crassus to tell Catiline not to be alarmed because Lentulus and Cethegus and others of the conspiracy had been caught, and the more to hasten his approach to the city, so as both to revive the spirits of the rest and to rescue those men the more easily from danger. But when Tarquinius named Crassus — a man of noble birth, of the greatest wealth, of supreme power — some thought the thing incredible, others, although they judged it true, yet because at such a time so great a man’s might seemed rather to be soothed than provoked, and most being beholden to Crassus through private dealings, cried out that the informer was false, and demanded that the matter be put to the House. And so, on Cicero’s motion, the full Senate decreed that Tarquinius’s information appeared false, and that he should be kept in chains and given no further opportunity to speak, unless he gave information about the man on whose advice he had told so great a lie. There were at the time those who thought that this information had been contrived by Publius Autronius, so that, with Crassus named, the rest might more easily be shielded by his power through the partnership in peril. Others said that Tarquinius had been put forward by Cicero, lest Crassus, after his fashion, by taking up the patronage of the wicked, should throw the commonwealth into confusion. Crassus himself I afterward heard declaring that so great an insult had been laid upon him by Cicero.

But at the same time Quintus Catulus and Gaius Piso could move Cicero neither by favor nor by bribe to have Gaius Caesar falsely named, whether through the Allobroges or some other informer. For each of them carried on bitter enmities with him: Piso, attacked in a trial for extortion over the unjust execution of a certain Transpadane; Catulus, inflamed with hatred from his candidacy for the pontificate, because in his old age, after enjoying the highest offices, he had come off beaten by the young Caesar. And the occasion seemed favorable, because Caesar, by outstanding generosity in private and by the greatest public shows, owed a vast sum of money. But when they could not drive the consul to so great a crime, they themselves, going about one by one and falsely alleging things they claimed to have heard from Volturcius or the Allobroges, had stirred up such great ill will against him that some Roman knights who stood under arms as a guard around the temple of Concord, driven either by the magnitude of the peril or by the impulsiveness of their temper, in order that their zeal for the commonwealth might be the more conspicuous, threatened Caesar with the sword as he left the Senate.

While these things were being done in the Senate, and while rewards were being decreed to the Allobrogian envoys and to Titus Volturcius, their information confirmed, the freedmen and a few of Lentulus’s clients, by different routes, were stirring up the artisans and the slaves in the quarters to rescue him, and in part were seeking out leaders of the mobs, who were accustomed to harass the commonwealth for pay. Cethegus, meanwhile, through messengers, was begging his household and his freedmen, picked and trained men, to gather in a band and break through to him with weapons. When the consul learned that these things were being prepared, having posted guards as the situation and the moment advised, he convened the Senate and put the question of what it pleased them should be done with those who had been handed into custody. But a full Senate had a little before judged that they had acted against the commonwealth. Then Decimus Junius Silanus, asked his opinion first, because at that time he was consul-elect, had proposed that the penalty be exacted upon those who were held in custody, and besides upon Lucius Cassius, Publius Furius, Publius Umbrenus, and Quintus Annius, if they should be caught; and he afterward, moved by the speech of Gaius Caesar, said he would cross to support the proposal of Tiberius Nero, who had moved that the matter be referred back once the guard had been strengthened. But Caesar, when it came to his turn, asked his opinion by the consul, spoke words of this kind:

"All men, Fathers of the Senate, who deliberate on doubtful matters ought to be free from hatred, friendship, anger, and pity. The mind does not easily discern the truth where these stand in the way, and no one of all men has obeyed at once his passion and his interest. Where you bend your intellect to it, it prevails; if passion possesses you, that holds sway, and the mind counts for nothing. I have ample store, Fathers of the Senate, of instances of how kings and peoples, driven by anger or by pity, have taken bad counsel. But I prefer to speak of those things which our forefathers did rightly and in order, against the passion of their own hearts. In the Macedonian war, which we waged with King Perseus, the state of Rhodes — great and splendid, which had grown by the resources of the Roman people — was faithless and hostile to us. But after the war was finished and the question of the Rhodians was debated, our forefathers, lest anyone say the war had been begun for the sake of their riches rather than of the wrong, let them go unpunished. Likewise in all the Punic wars, though the Carthaginians had often, both in peace and during truces, done many wicked deeds, our forefathers never did the like when the chance offered: they asked rather what was worthy of themselves than what might justly be done against the foe. This too you must see to, Fathers of the Senate: that the crime of Publius Lentulus and the rest weigh not more with you than your own dignity, and that you not consult your anger more than your good name. For if a punishment worthy of their deeds can be found, I approve a course never used before; but if the magnitude of the crime surpasses all men’s imagining, I judge we must use those penalties which the laws have provided. Most of those who have given their opinions before me have, in studied and lofty style, bewailed the plight of the commonwealth. They have recounted what the savagery of war would be, what would befall the conquered: maidens and boys ravished, children torn from their parents’ embrace, mothers of households suffering whatever pleased the victors, temples and homes plundered, slaughter and fires set, in short everything filled with arms, corpses, blood, and mourning. But, by the immortal gods, to what did that speech tend? To make you hostile to the conspiracy? No doubt the man whom a matter so great and so atrocious has not stirred, a speech will set ablaze! It is not so; nor to any mortal do his own wrongs seem small; many have taken them more heavily than was just. But the latitude allowed differs from man to man, Fathers of the Senate. Those who, set low, live their lives in obscurity — if in anger they do some wrong, few know of it: their fame and their fortune are on a level; but those who, endowed with great power, pass their lives on a height — the deeds of these all mortals know. So in the greatest fortune there is the least latitude: it becomes such men neither to show favor nor to hate, and least of all to give way to anger; what in others is called temper, in those who hold power is called arrogance and cruelty. For my part I judge thus, Fathers of the Senate, that all tortures are less than the crimes of these men. But most mortals remember only the last thing, and in the case of wicked men, forgetting their crime, they dwell on the punishment, if it has been a little too severe. Decimus Silanus, a brave and energetic man, I know for certain spoke as he did out of zeal for the commonwealth, and that he does not, in so great a matter, indulge favor or enmity: such are the character and moderation of the man that I have known. Yet his proposal seems to me not cruel — for what cruelty can be done to such men? — but foreign to the interest of our commonwealth. For surely either fear or a sense of wrong has driven you, Silanus, consul-elect, to decree a new kind of penalty. Of fear it is needless to speak, especially when, by the diligence of that most distinguished man the consul, such great forces are under arms. Of the penalty I can say, what the truth is, that in grief and misery death is a rest from troubles, not a torment; that it dissolves all the ills of mortals; that beyond it there is no place for care or for joy. But, by the immortal gods, why did you not add to your proposal that they first be punished with the lash? Is it because the Porcian law forbids it? But other laws, too, ordain that for condemned citizens life not be taken away, but exile be allowed. Or because it is heavier to be flogged than to be killed? But what is harsh or too heavy against men convicted of so great a crime? But if it is because flogging is the lighter penalty, how is it consistent to fear the law in the smaller matter, when you have disregarded it in the greater? But who, you say, will censure what shall be decreed against the parricides of the commonwealth? Time, the day, fortune, whose caprice governs nations. To those men, whatever befalls will befall deservedly; but you, Fathers of the Senate, consider what you ordain as a precedent against others! All evil precedents have arisen out of good measures. But when power comes to men ignorant of it or less good, that new precedent is transferred from the worthy and fit to the unworthy and unfit. The Spartans, when the Athenians were conquered, set over them thirty men to manage their state. These at first began to put to death, uncondemned, every worst man, hated by all: at this the people rejoiced and said it was deservedly done. Afterward, when the license grew little by little, they killed good and bad alike at their whim, and terrified the rest with fear: so the state, crushed into slavery, paid a heavy penalty for its foolish joy. Within our own memory, when the victorious Sulla ordered Damasippus and others of his sort, who had risen by the commonwealth’s ruin, to be slaughtered, who did not praise his act? Men said that criminal and factious men, who had harried the commonwealth with seditions, had been deservedly killed. But that act was the beginning of a great disaster. For as each man coveted another’s house or villa, or in the end a vessel or a garment, he took pains that the owner should be among the number of the proscribed. So those to whom the death of Damasippus had been a joy were a little later dragged off themselves, nor was there an end of the slaughter until Sulla had glutted all his followers with riches. And I fear these things not in Marcus Tullius, nor in these times; but in a great state there are many and varied dispositions. It is possible that at another time, under another consul who likewise has an army in his hand, something false may be believed for true. When, on this precedent, by a decree of the Senate, a consul has drawn the sword, who shall set a limit for him, or who shall restrain him? Our forefathers, Fathers of the Senate, never lacked either counsel or boldness; nor did pride stand in their way, but that they imitated others’ institutions, if only they were good. Their arms and military weapons they took from the Samnites, most of the insignia of their magistrates from the Etruscans. In short, whatever anywhere among allies or enemies seemed serviceable, they pursued at home with the utmost zeal: they preferred to imitate good things rather than to envy them. But at that same time, imitating the custom of Greece, they punished citizens with the lash and exacted the extreme penalty from the condemned. After the commonwealth grew, and with the multitude of citizens factions gained strength, the innocent began to be entrapped and other things of the kind to be done; then the Porcian and other laws were provided, by which exile was allowed to the condemned. This reason, Fathers of the Senate, against our taking a course never used before, I count especially weighty. Surely the virtue and wisdom were greater in those who out of small resources made so great an empire than in us, who scarcely keep what they so well won. Does it please me, then, that they be let go and Catiline’s army be increased? By no means. But this is my proposal: that their property be confiscated, that they themselves be kept in chains among the towns that are strongest in resources; and that no one hereafter bring their case before the Senate or lay it before the people; whoever does otherwise, let the Senate hold that he will be acting against the commonwealth and the safety of all."

When Caesar had made an end of speaking, the rest assented, one to one man, another to another, with a word. But Marcus Porcius Cato, asked his opinion, delivered a speech of this kind: "Far other is my mind, Fathers of the Senate, when I consider our circumstances and our perils, and when I turn over with myself the opinions of certain men. They seem to me to have discoursed on the punishment of men who have prepared war upon their country, their parents, their altars and their hearths; but the situation warns us to guard against them rather than to deliberate what we shall decree against them. For other crimes you may prosecute when they have been done; this one, unless you take care that it not happen, once it has come to pass, in vain do you appeal to the courts: when the city is taken, nothing is left to the conquered. But, by the immortal gods, I call upon you, who have always reckoned your houses, your villas, your statues, your paintings worth more than the commonwealth: if you wish to keep those things, whatever they are, that you embrace, if you wish to furnish leisure for your pleasures, then wake at last and lay hold of the commonwealth! It is not a question of revenues, nor of wrongs to our allies: our liberty and our life are at stake. Often, Fathers of the Senate, I have made many speeches in this order; often I have complained of the luxury and greed of our citizens, and on that account I have many men against me. I, who had never granted to myself and my own conscience indulgence for any fault, was not easily forgiving the misdeeds of another’s wantonness. But although you set little store by these things, still the commonwealth was firm: its wealth bore with the negligence. But now the question is not whether we live by good morals or bad, nor how great or how splendid the empire of the Roman people may be, but whether all this, of whatever sort it seems, is to be ours, or, together with ourselves, the enemy’s. And here someone names to me mildness and mercy! Long since, in truth, we have lost the right names of things: because lavishing what belongs to others is called generosity, and boldness in evil deeds is called courage, therefore the commonwealth stands at the brink. Let them be generous, by all means, since such are our morals, out of the fortunes of our allies; let them be merciful to the plunderers of the treasury; only let them not lavish our blood, and, while they spare a few criminals, go on to destroy all good men! Well and elegantly Gaius Caesar, a little before, discoursed in this order on life and death — holding false, I suppose, the things told of the underworld: that the wicked, on a path apart from the good, hold places foul, untilled, hideous, and full of dread. And so he proposed that their property be confiscated, that they themselves be kept under guard among the towns — fearing, no doubt, that if they were at Rome they might be rescued by force, either by the partners of the conspiracy or by a hired mob. As if, forsooth, the bad and the criminal were only in the city, and not throughout all Italy — or as if boldness did not avail more where the means of defense are smaller! Therefore this proposal is empty, if he fears danger from them; but if, amid so great a fear in all, he alone is unafraid, the more does it concern me to be afraid for myself and for you. Therefore, when you decide about Publius Lentulus and the rest, hold it for certain that you are at the same time passing judgment on Catiline’s army and on all the conspirators! The more vigorously you act in this, the weaker their spirit will be; if they see you grow but a little slack, they will all be upon you in fury. Do not suppose that our forefathers made the commonwealth great from small by arms! If it were so, we should hold it far fairer than they; for we have a greater supply of allies and citizens, and besides of arms and horses, than they had. But there were other things that made them great, which we have not: industry at home, just rule abroad, a mind free in counsel, in bondage to neither wrongdoing nor lust. In place of these we have luxury and greed, public poverty, private opulence. We praise riches, we pursue sloth. Between the good and the bad there is no distinction; ambition possesses all the rewards of virtue. No wonder: when each of you takes counsel apart for himself, when at home you are slaves to your pleasures, here to money or to favor, the result is that an assault is made on a commonwealth left defenseless. But I pass these things by. Citizens of the noblest birth have conspired to burn their country; they are summoning to war the nation of the Gauls, most hostile to the Roman name; the leader of the enemy with his army is over our heads. And do you even now hesitate and doubt what to do with enemies caught within the walls? Take pity on them, I suppose — they are but young men who have erred through ambition — and send them off even under arms! Beware lest that mildness and mercy of yours, if they take up arms, turn to your misery! No doubt the situation is harsh — but you do not fear it. On the contrary, you fear it greatly. But out of sloth and softness of spirit, each waiting upon another, you hesitate — trusting, no doubt, in the immortal gods, who have often saved this commonwealth in its greatest perils. Not by vows nor by womanish supplications is the help of the gods secured: by watching, by acting, by counseling well, all things turn out prosperously. When you have given yourself over to slackness and cowardice, in vain do you implore the gods: they are angry and hostile. Among our forefathers Aulus Manlius Torquatus, in the Gallic war, ordered his own son to be put to death because he had fought the enemy against orders, and that excellent young man paid with his death the penalty of an immoderate bravery: and you hesitate what to decree concerning the most cruel parricides? No doubt the rest of their life stands against this crime! By all means, spare the dignity of Lentulus, if he himself ever spared his own chastity, his own good name, or any gods or men whatever! Pardon the youth of Cethegus — unless this is the second time he has made war on his country! For why should I speak of Gabinius, Statilius, Caeparius? Had anything ever been of weight to them, they would not have held such designs against the commonwealth. In short, Fathers of the Senate, if, by Hercules, there were room for error, I would readily let you be corrected by the event itself, since you despise words. But we are hemmed in on every side. Catiline with his army presses at our throat; other enemies are within the walls and in the very bosom of the city; nothing can be prepared or planned in secret: the more reason that we must make haste. Therefore my proposal is this: since by the wicked design of criminal citizens the commonwealth has come into the greatest perils, and since these men, by the testimony of Titus Volturcius and the envoys of the Allobroges, have been convicted and have confessed that they prepared slaughter, fires, and other foul and cruel deeds against their fellow citizens and their country, that upon the confessed, as upon those caught red-handed in capital crimes, punishment be exacted after the custom of our forefathers."

When Cato had sat down, all the men of consular rank, and likewise a great part of the Senate, praised his proposal and extolled his greatness of spirit to the skies, while, reproaching one another, they called each other cowards. Cato is held illustrious and great; a decree of the Senate was passed, just as he had moved. But to me, who have read much and heard much of the brilliant deeds the Roman people did at home and in war, by sea and by land, it chanced to be a pleasure to attend to what thing above all had upheld such great undertakings. I knew that often with a small band they had contended against great legions of the enemy; I had learned that wars had been waged with slender forces against wealthy kings; that, besides, they had often borne the violence of fortune; that in eloquence the Greeks, in the glory of war the Gauls, had stood before the Romans. And as I turned much over, it became clear to me that the surpassing virtue of a few citizens had accomplished all, and that thereby it came about that poverty overcame riches, and fewness the multitude. But after the state was corrupted by luxury and sloth, the commonwealth in turn sustained by its own greatness the vices of its commanders and magistrates, and, as though the parent were worn out, for many a season scarcely anyone at Rome was great in virtue. But within my own memory there were two men of immense virtue and opposite characters, Marcus Cato and Gaius Caesar. And since the matter has brought them forward, it was not my design to pass them by in silence, but rather to set forth the nature and character of each, so far as my talent allows.

In them, then, birth, age, and eloquence were nearly equal, their greatness of spirit a match, and their glory likewise — but each had his own. Caesar was held great for his kindnesses and his bounty, Cato for the integrity of his life. The one was made illustrious by mildness and mercy; to the other severity had lent dignity. Caesar won glory by giving, by relieving, by pardoning; Cato by bestowing nothing. In the one there was a refuge for the wretched; in the other, ruin for the wicked. The one’s easiness was praised, the other’s steadfastness. In short, Caesar had set his mind to labor and to watchfulness; intent on his friends’ affairs, he neglected his own, and refused nothing that was worth the giving; for himself he longed for a great command, an army, a new war in which his virtue might shine out. But Cato’s zeal was for moderation, for propriety, but above all for severity; he vied not in riches with the rich, nor in faction with the factious, but with the active in virtue, with the modest in restraint, with the blameless in self-denial; he preferred to be good rather than to seem so: so the less he sought glory, the more it followed him.

After the Senate, as I have said, went over to Cato’s proposal, the consul, thinking it best to forestall the night that was at hand, lest anything be set afoot in that interval, ordered the triumvirs to make ready what the execution required. He himself, having posted guards, led Lentulus down to the prison; the same was done with the rest by the praetors. There is in the prison a place called the Tullianum, when you have gone up a little to the left, sunk about twelve feet into the ground. Walls fence it on every side, and above it a vault joined of stone arches; but with its squalor, its darkness, and its stench, its aspect is foul and terrible. After Lentulus had been let down into that place, the executioners of capital sentences, to whom it had been entrusted, broke his neck with a noose. So that patrician, of the most illustrious house of the Cornelii, who had held consular power at Rome, found an end of life worthy of his character and his deeds. On Cethegus, Statilius, Gabinius, and Caeparius the penalty was exacted in the same manner.

While these things were being done at Rome, Catiline, out of the whole force that he himself had brought and that Manlius had held, formed two legions, and filled out the cohorts according to the number of his soldiers. Then, as each volunteer or ally had come into the camp, he distributed them evenly, and in a short time had filled up the legions in number of men, though at the outset he had had no more than two thousand. But of the whole force about a fourth part was equipped with soldiers’ arms; the rest, as chance had armed each, carried hunting-spears or lances, others sharpened stakes. But after Antonius with his army was drawing near, Catiline made his way through the mountains, moving camp now toward the city, now in the direction of Gaul, and giving the enemy no chance to fight. He hoped that he would presently have great forces, if at Rome his accomplices had carried out their undertakings. Meanwhile he kept rejecting the slaves, of whom great numbers had at first flocked to him, relying on the resources of the conspiracy, and at the same time judging it foreign to his designs to seem to have made the cause of citizens common with runaway slaves.

But after a messenger reached the camp that the conspiracy at Rome had been laid bare, and that the penalty had been exacted on Lentulus and Cethegus and the rest whom I have mentioned above, most of those whom the hope of plunder or the passion for revolution had lured to war slipped away; the rest Catiline led off by forced marches over the rough mountains into the territory of Pistoria, with the design of escaping secretly by byways into Transalpine Gaul. But Quintus Metellus Celer, with three legions, was on guard in the Picene country, judging, from the difficulty of Catiline’s situation, that he was contriving the very thing we have spoken of above. And so when he learned his route from deserters, he quickly moved camp and sat down at the very foot of the mountains, where the descent lay for Catiline as he hastened into Gaul. Nor yet was Antonius far off, since with a great army, unencumbered, over easier ground, he was following the fugitives. But Catiline, when he saw himself shut in by the mountains and by the enemy’s forces, his fortunes ruined in the city, and no hope either of flight or of rescue, thinking it best in such a case to try the fortune of war, resolved to join battle with Antonius as soon as possible. And so, calling an assembly, he made a speech of this kind:

"I am well assured, soldiers, that words do not add valor, and that neither out of a coward is an active man made, nor a brave army out of a timid one, by a commander’s speech. However much boldness is in each man’s spirit, by nature or by habit, just so much is wont to show itself in war. The man whom neither glory nor dangers rouse, you exhort in vain: the fear in his heart blocks his ears. But I have called you together to give you a few warnings, and at the same time to lay open the reason for my plan. You know well, soldiers, what disaster the sloth and cowardice of Lentulus has brought upon himself and upon us, and how, while I waited for reinforcements from the city, I have been unable to set out for Gaul. But now in what state our affairs stand, you all understand as well as I. Two armies of the enemy bar our way, one from the city, the other from Gaul; to stay longer in these parts, however much our spirit might bear it, the lack of grain and other supplies forbids; wherever we choose to go, the way must be opened with the sword. Therefore I warn you to be of brave and ready spirit, and, when you enter the battle, to remember that you carry in your right hands riches, honor, glory, and besides liberty and your country. If we conquer, all will be safe for us: provisions in plenty, the towns and colonies will lie open; if we yield in fear, those same things will turn against us: no place, no friend will shelter the man whom his arms have not sheltered. Besides, soldiers, the same necessity does not hang over us and over them: we fight for our country, for liberty, for life; for them it is needless to fight for the power of a few. The more boldly attack, then, mindful of your former valor! You might have passed your lives in exile in the utmost disgrace; some of you, having lost your goods, might have waited at Rome on the wealth of others: because those things seemed foul and not to be borne by men, you resolved to follow this course. If you wish to leave it behind, boldness is needed; no one but the victor has exchanged war for peace. For to hope for safety in flight, when you have turned away from the enemy the arms by which the body is shielded — that, indeed, is madness. Always in battle the greatest danger is to those who fear most; boldness is reckoned a wall. When I consider you, soldiers, and weigh your deeds, a great hope of victory holds me. Your spirit, your youth, your valor urge me on, and besides our necessity, which makes even the timid brave. For the narrowness of the ground prevents the enemy’s numbers from enveloping us. But if fortune begrudges your valor, take care not to lose your lives unavenged, nor to be slaughtered like cattle and taken rather than, fighting in the manner of men, to leave the enemy a bloody and grievous victory!"

When he had said this, after a brief pause he ordered the trumpets to sound and led his ranks, drawn up, down into level ground. Then, the horses of all being removed, so that with the danger made equal the soldiers’ spirit might be the greater, he himself on foot drew up the army to suit the ground and his forces. For, as there was a plain between the mountains on the left and a rough crag on the right, he set eight cohorts in front and posted the standards of the rest more closely together in reserve. From these he drew up into the front line the centurions, all picked men and recalled veterans, and besides the best-armed of the common soldiers. He ordered Gaius Manlius to take charge on the right, a certain man of Faesulae on the left. He himself took his stand with the freedmen and the colonists beside the eagle which Gaius Marius was said to have had in his army in the Cimbric war. On the other side Gaius Antonius, lame in the feet and so unable to be present at the battle, gave over the army to his legate Marcus Petreius. He placed the veteran cohorts, which he had enrolled because of the emergency, in front, and behind them the rest of the army in reserve. He himself, riding round, addressed each man by name, exhorted, begged them to remember that they were fighting against unarmed brigands, for their country, for their children, for their altars and their hearths. A military man, because for more than thirty years he had served with great glory in the army as tribune or prefect or legate or praetor, he knew most of the men themselves and their brave deeds; by recalling these he kindled the soldiers’ spirits.

But when Petreius, all things reconnoitered, gave the signal with the trumpet, he ordered the cohorts to advance gradually; the enemy’s army did the same. When they had come to the point from which the skirmishers could begin the fight, with a great shout and with hostile standards they charged: they let fall their javelins, and the work was done with swords. The veterans, mindful of their old valor, pressed on fiercely at close quarters; the others, no cowards, resisted: the struggle was fought with the utmost force. Meanwhile Catiline, with the light-armed, ranged in the front line, came to the aid of those in trouble, called up fresh men for the wounded, saw to everything, fought much himself, often struck down a foe: he performed at once the duties of an active soldier and of a good commander. When Petreius saw Catiline striving with great force, contrary to his expectation, he led the praetorian cohort into the middle of the enemy and slew them as they were thrown into confusion and resisting here and there in scattered groups. Then he attacked the rest from both flanks. Manlius and the man of Faesulae fell fighting in the front. Catiline, when he saw his forces routed and himself left with a few, mindful of his birth and his former dignity, rushed into the thickest of the enemy, and there, fighting, was run through.

But when the battle was over, then indeed you might have seen how great the boldness, how great the force of spirit, had been in Catiline’s army. For almost the very place that each, living, had taken by fighting, that, his life lost, he covered with his body. A few, indeed, whom the praetorian cohort had scattered from the center, had fallen a little apart, but all, nonetheless, with wounds in front. Catiline, in truth, was found far from his own men, among the corpses of the enemy, still breathing a little, and keeping in his face the fierceness of spirit he had had while alive. In the end, out of the whole force, neither in the battle nor in flight was a single free-born citizen taken: so all alike had spared their own lives and the enemy’s not at all. Nor yet had the army of the Roman people won a glad or a bloodless victory; for each most active man had either fallen in the battle or come away gravely wounded. Many, moreover, who had come out from the camp to look or to plunder, turning over the enemy’s corpses, found, some a friend, others a guest or a kinsman; there were likewise those who recognized their own personal enemies. So throughout the whole army, variously, gladness, sorrow, mourning, and joy were stirred.