Cicero 10-17

I myself discovered all these things when your gathering had scarcely yet even been dismissed,

I fortified and strengthened my house with a larger number of guards, I shut out

those whom you had sent to me to pay their morning call, when they themselves had come, those whom I

had already predicted to many eminent men that they would come to me now at that point in time.

Since these things are so, Catiline, proceed to where you began, leave the city;

please, I beg  you; the gates lie open; go on your way. For too long your Manlian

camping is missing you as its general. Take away with you even all your friends, if less, as many as possible;

cleanse the city. You will free me from great anxiety, provided the city wall lies between me and you

Now you are not able to remain with us any longer. I shall not bear it, I shall not endure it, I shall not allow it.

many thanks are requiring to be given to the immortal gods, and moreover to this very Jupiter Stator

the most ancient guardien of this city, because so many times now we have escaped this so repulsive,

so horrible and so disturbed plague of the republic

the safety of the state must not be risked more often in the person of one man. However

long you plotted against me while I was consul-elect, I was not defended by a public garrison

but by my own private diligence, when at the late elections for consuls

you wanted to kill me as consul in campus martius and your own rivals, I endeavoured to surpress

your heinous acts by the assistance and resources of friends, with no public tumult

raised; And then however often you tried to attack me, I opposed you through my own resources

although I saw that my end was joined together with disaster for the republic

Now you attack the entire republic openly; you call the temple of the immortal gods,

the buildings of the city, the life of all the citizens, the whole of Italy to destruction and desolation,

Therefore since i do not dare to do that which is both the first action

and that which is appropriate to this power and the tradition of our forefathers

I will do that which is more leniant in respect to strictness, that which is more useful for the common safety. For if I order you to be killed,

the remianing handful of your conspiritors will remain in public affairs. But if you, as

I have encouraged for a long time will leave, great and

destructive dregs, consisting of your comrades, will be drained from the city.

What is it Catiline? Surely you do not doubt that you were going to on my orders do that which

you were already going to do by your own free will? The consul orders the enemy to leave the city. You ask me: Surely not

into exile. I do not order you to but if you will consult me I advise you to.

For what is there, Catiline, which is able to please you in this city? In which

there is no-one outside of that band of conspiritors of your ruined men, who does not fear you

fear you; no one, who does not hate you

what mark of domestice turpitude has not been burned into your life? What

disgrace of public affairs does not linger on your reputation? What lust from your eyes, what

crime from your hands, what disgraceful act from your whole body has ever been absent? Is there a young man to whom you,

you whom have ensnared in temptations of corruption, have not held a sword of boldness or a torch for lust?

What indeed? Recently, when you had made your house empty for a new marriage by the death of your former wife,

surely you crowned that evil deed with another incredible crime? That

I pass over and allow to be buried easily, lest the ghastiliness of such a disgraceful act  

might not seem to have existed in this city and not to have been avenged. I pass over the ruins

of your fortunes, all of which you will realise are hanging over you before the next Ides:

I come not to those things, which relate to the private infamy of your vices, not to

your domestic difficulties and repulsivness, but of the greatest

concern to the republic, and the health and safety of all of us

Is this light, O catiline, or the breath of this sky able to be pleasant to you,

when you know that there is not one of these men who is ignorant, that you, on the 31st of December,

with Lepidus and Tullus as consuls, stood in the assembly with a weapon? That you had prepared a band of men

for the cause of the killing of the consuls and chief of men of the state?

That no certain mind or fear of yours blocked your evil deed and madness, but the fortunate of the Roman people?

And now I dismiss these things - for neither are they obscure nor have many been comited afterwards

How many times have you tried to kill me as designated

as consul, indeed how many times as consul! How many attacks

of yours, having been thrown in such a way, so that they seemed not able to be avoided,

have I escaped with a small sideways movement of my body, as they say! You do nothing

You acheive nothing, however you have neither ceased to try and to wait.

How many times already has that curved dagger been wrenched from your hands? How many times

has it dropped from your hands by some chance and slipped past. Indeed I do not

know with what sacred rituals that that blade has been initiated and dedicated by you,

that you might think that it is necessary to be plunged into the body of a consul

Now indeed what sort of life is that life of yours? For in this way now I will speak with you, not in order that

I may seem to have been impelled by hatred, by which I ought to be, but by pity, nothing of

which is due to you. You came a little while before into the senate. Who from this so great an assembly

greeted you from among your so many friends and accomplices? If this after the memory of men

happened to no one else, are you waiting for an insult with words, when you may be oppressed by

a heavy judgement of silence? What, because at your arrival these seats were vacant

because all consuls, who have been quite often set for slaughter by you,

at the same time you sat down, left that part of the benches bare and vacant.

On my honour, if my slaves feared me in the same way that all the citizens fear you,

I should think to leave my house. Do you think you should leave the city?

And I saw that I was even suspected wrongly by my own citizens and loathed so deeply,

then I would prefer to remove myself from the sight of the citizens than to be looked upon by the hostile eyes of all.

just and for a long time now has been due to you, do you think, to avoid the sight and presence

of those whose minds and senses you wound? If your parents feared you and

hated you, nor were you able to calm them by any method, as I believe, you would depart from their eyes

somewhere: Now your fatherland, which is the common parent of us all,

hates and fears you and for a long time now passes no judgment on you, except that you are thinking parricide

in its case: will you neither hold in its awe it authority, nor follow its judgement, nor fear its power?