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How long, at length, Cataline, are you to abuse our patience?
For what time, even, is your damned madness to evade us?
To what end will your unrestrained audacity *** itself?
Are you not-at-all affected by the night guard of the Palatine?
Not at all by the vigils of the city, or by the fear of the people?
Not at all in this concourse of all good men,
Not at all Here, in this most entrenched senate house,
Do not the faces and countenances of these men MOVE YOU?
Don't you feel that all your plans are wide-open?
Can't you see that your conspiracy now is bound-up by the common knowledge of all?
What you did last night, and the night before,
Where you were, Whom you called together, What counsel you took:
Of these things you were expecting our ignorance?!
O the times, O the principles!
The senate knows of these things, the consul sees them!
And yet this man lives! He lives?!
Nay indeed, for he even comes into the senate!
While he is made a participant of the public counsels,
he notes and marks out with his eyes for *** each and every one of us!
And we, brave men, seem to do enough for the republic,
IF we might avoid the madness and weapons of that man!?
You should have long ago been led to death by decree of this counsel, Cataline,
that onto you should be heaped the destruction which you have long been planning for all of us!
In Truth, did that most excellent man, Publius Scipio the supreme pontiff, slay Tiberius Grachhus, who was only slightly shaking the state of the republic!-- he killed him privately!
Now Cataline, who is openly desiring to lay waste the whole globe of the earth with slaughter and flames-- Shall we consuls put up with him?!
For, I really am passing over matters of more ancient import,
how Gaius Servilius Ahala slew Spurius Maelius, laboring for a revolution, with his own hand!
There was, formerly, such damned VIRTUE in this republic..
that brave men often coerced dangerous citizens with FAR greater punishments than the bitterest of enemies!
We the senate have a decree against you, Cataline, violent and grave.
There is not wanting to the Republic counsels, nor to the authority of our order,
We, we I say openly, consuls are wanting.
Formerly the senate decreed that "Lucius Opimius the consul should look to it, lest any harm come to the republic"--
Not a single night intervened! He was KILLED the very next day,
on certain RUMORS of sedition: Gaius Grachhus, a man born of most noble ancestry.
He was executed with his children: Marcus Fulvius, a man even of consular rank!
With the senate similarly having consulted Gaius Marius and Lucius Valerius, singularly committed to saving the republic,
Surely NOT, even for a single day afterwards, were Lucius Saturninus tribune of the people, and Gaius Servilius the praetor, delayed from death and punishment by the republic?
But now truly for the TWENTIETH DAY we are suffering to have our senate's blade of authority to be blunted!
We have such a decree of the senate against you, Cataline,
truly however enclosed in these tablets as a dagger is in the sheath,
from which decree of the senate it is fit, Cataline,
that you should be immediately put to death.
Now you are living, and you live not to put-down your audacity, but to confirm it.
I wish, conscript fathers, that I may be merciful.
I desire, amid such dangers to the republic, that I not be seen as negligent,
But I do now condemn myself of delays and inadequacy!
For, there is a camp pitched in Italy in hostility to the Roman people, in the ditches of Etruria.
Every single day the number of enemies grows.
However, you all SEE the commander of that camp and the leader of the enemies every day come within these walls and even into the senate!
Daily designing some unknown destruction for the citizenry.
If, Cataline, I should now order you to be seized, or put to death,
I believe I shall have to fear that all good men will say this has been done too LATELY by me, rather than too cruelly!
But Truly to do that which is the chief duty of my office, for certain reasons I am not yet led to do what l should do.
You will eventually be put to death at a time when no-one so dishonest, so wicked, so like-yourself may be found who will not admit that it was done justly!
As long as there is anyone who dares to defend you, you will live.
And you will live such as you live now-- oppressed and beleaguered by my many strong guards,
lest you should be able to move yourself against the republic.
And also the eyes and ears of many, although you did not perceive them,
will do as they have hitherto done-- they are watching and guarding you.
For what else is there Cataline, which you now can expect
if neither night's darkness can hide your wicked meetings, nor may private walls contain within them the voices of your conspiracy?
If all things are brought to light, will they burst forth?!
Change now that damned mindset of yours. Trust me--
Forget slaughter and flames! You are held on all sides!
Your plans are much clearer to us now than light itself!
Which plans, it is allowed for you to pass in-review with me:
Do you remember that I said in the senate, before the 12th day before the Kalends of November,
that he would be in-arms, on a certain day which would be the day before the 6th of the Kalends:
Gaius Manlius, satellite and minister to your audacity?
Surely it didn't escape me, Cataline, not only this fact itself so important, so atrocious, so incredible,
but also that which leaves much more to be astonished at this very day!
I also said in the senate that you had fixed the date for the slaughter of our noblemen for the 5th before the Kalends of November..
On A day when many of our chief citizens had fled from Rome, not so much for the sake of saving themselves, as for the sake of faltering your plans!
Surely you cannot deny that on that very day, surrounded by my guards and by my diligence,
that you were unable to move yourself against the republic?
While you, with the departure of the rest, were nonetheless saying that you were contended to *** those of us who remained?
What? When on the very Kalends of November, confident that you would seize the Praeneste palace Palatine in a night attack,
when the place had been fortified at my command with a greater guard?
You do nothing. You plan nothing. You think nothing which I do not only hear of, but also do see and know quite clearly!