[20]
Since, then, this is the case, do you hesitate, O Catiline, if you cannot remain here with
tranquillity, to depart to some distant laud, and to trust your life, saved from just and
deserved punishment, to flight and solitude? Make a motion, say you, to the senate, (for that
is what you demand) and if thus body votes that you ought to go into banishment, you say that
you will obey. I will not make such a motion, it is contrary to my principles, and yet I will
let you see what these men think of you. Be gone from the city, O Catiline, deliver the
republic from fear; depart into banishment, if that is the word you are waiting for. What
now, O Catiline? Do you not perceive, do you not see the silence of these men; they permit
it, they say nothing; why wait you for the authority of their words when you see their wishes
in their silence?
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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