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Recall now with me that night before,
now you should know that I have been much more vigilantly watching for the safety of the republic, than you for its destruction.
I say-- on that night you came in among the cocksuckers-- I will not deal with you obscurely--
into the house of Marcus Laeca! That with you were several persons, accomplices in the same folly and ***!
Do you dare deny it? Why are you silent? I will prove it if you deny it.
For I see that there are here among us some of those same men who were with you on that night.
O immortal Gods! Where in the world are we? In what city do we live?
What republic have we?
There are here, among our numbers, conscript fathers,
in this most grave and solemn assembly of the glove of the earth,
men who are thinking about my death, the deaths of all of us,
and moreover men who are thinking about leading the whole world to death!
I the consul see these men, and I even ask their opinion of the republic!
And those who should be slain by the sword,
I do not yet wound them with my words!
You were present, therefore, at the house of Laeca on that night, Cataline,
You divided out the parts of Italy, You fixed where it seemed good that each should go.
You selected whom you would leave in Rome, whom you would lead out with you,
You picked out parts of the city for burning! You assured them that you would set forth at once!
You said it was only but a little-delay to you that I might still be living!
There were found two Roman knights who freed you of THAT care,
and promised that they would come to me shortly before daylight and kill me in my own bed!
I found out all of these things, even with your assembly scarcely having been dismissed!
I fortified my house with a greater guard, I shut out those who you had sent to me in the morning--
and had already told many of our best men that they would be about to come to me at that time.
With these things being so, Cataline, Proceed whither you have begun!
Go out, at last, from the city: The gates are open-- set forth!
For too long has that Manlian camp been wanting for you, its commander.
And lead out with you all of your own, if not all yet as many as possible.
Purge the city! You will be free from great fear, provided that only the walls intervene between me and you.
You cannot now dwell with us any longer!
I will not bear it! I will not suffer it! I will not allow it!
Great gratitude is to be felt to the immortal Gods, and to this Jupiter Stator,
Most Ancient guardian of this city,
because from such a wicked, horrible, such an incestuous pest to the whole republic we have now escaped.
The highest safety of the state must not often be jeopardized by one man.
As often as you plotted against me as consul-elect, Catalina,
I defended myself not by a public guard, but by a private diligence.
When, at the last consular meeting you said you wished to *** me the consul, and your other competitors in the camp,
I evaded your wicked schemes with the help and resources of my friends,
and with no tumult having been stirred publicly!
However, I was beginning to see that my destruction would be linked to an even greater destruction to the Republic.
Now you openly attack the whole State!
The temples of the immortal Gods, houses of the city, the lives of all citizens,
and In short you are calling the whole of Italy to death and destruction!
Wherefore, since I do not yet dare to do that which is the first and chief custom of my office and of our ancestors,
instead I will do that which is more lenient in the way of severity,
and more useful towards the common good:
For if I shall order you to be put to death, the rest of your band of conspirators will rise up in the state.
But on the other hand, if you do as I have advised you and leave,
then the cesspit of your companions, great and destructive to the state, will also be drawn out of the city.
What is it Cataline?
Surely you don't hesitate to do, at my command, that which you were already doing of your own accord?
The consul bids an enemy leave the city--- if you should ask me:
"Surely not…in exile?" I do not bid you go, but if you should consult me,
I do advise you.
What is there Cataline, in this city which can still delight you?
Wherein there is no one besides your damned band of conspirators
who does not fear you, no one who does not hate you!
What mark of domestic baseness is there, that is not already branded on your life?
What disgrace of the infamy of your private affairs does not cling to you?
What *** was ever absent from your eyes? What crime ever from your hands?
What flagitiousness was ever absent from your whole body?
To what young man, whom you might have enticed by certain allurements, have you not offered either a blade for audacity or a shaft for ***!?
What's more- Recently, after the death of your second wife, when you had made vacant your house for new nuptials,
did you not aggravate this sin by yet another incredible crime?
Which, I do omit and easily suffer it to be left silent--
lest there may seem to be such a deed in this city as to ever have happened or been unavenged!
I pass over the ruins of your personal fortune, all of which you will feel hanging over you on the next Ides;
and I come to those things which relate not to the private stupidity of your vices,
not to your domestic difficulty and dishonor,
but I come to those things which pertain to the highest life and safety of the republic, and for all of us.
Is this light to you, Cataline, or is the spirit of the Gods sweet to you?
When you know that there is NO ONE among us who is ignorant
that on the day before the Kalends of January, in the consulship of Lepidus and Tullus,
that you stood in the committee with a weapon?
(no one who is ignorant..) That you prepared a band of men for the purpose of slaying the consuls and chief men of state?
That no wisdom or fear on your part, except for the fortune of the Roman people was ever an obstacle to your wickedness and insanity?
Now I pass over those matters-- for neither are they obscure nor not-many-- which were done afterwards,
How often have you attempted to kill me when consul-elect?
How often when actual consul?!
How many of your little attacks, so-aimed such that they seemed unavoidable, did I ESCAPE, as they say, with a slight movement of my body!?
There is Nothing you do, Nothing you attain, Nothing you design which is able to escape me in due time.
And yet neither do you cease to attempt nor to hope…
Truly, How many times has that dagger fallen from you by some chance and escaped?
Yet you cannot be with it any longer:
which (dagger) indeed, by why sacred rights it has been initiated I know not,
because you think it necessary to fix it in the body of the consul!