[16]
But that pair of you, acting on
the designs of Catiline and Lentulus, expelled me from my house, and
confined Cnaeus Pompeius to his; for they did not think that as long as I
stood firm, and remained in the city exerting all my vigilance for its
defence, and as long as Cnaeus Pompeius, the conqueror of all the world,
opposed them, they should ever be able utterly to destroy the republic. You
sought even to inflict punishment on me, by which you might make atonement
to the shades of the dead conspirators. You poured forth upon me all the
hatred which had been long nursed in the wicked feelings of impious men. And
if I had not yielded for a while to their frenzy, I should have been
murdered in the tomb of Catiline, under your leadership. But what greater
proof do you want that there is no real difference between you and Catiline,
than is the fact, that you awakened again that same band from the half-dead
relics of Catiline's army? that you collected all abandoned men from all
quarters? that you let loose against me the dregs of the prisons? that you
armed conspirators? that you sought to expose my person and the lives of all
good men to their frenzy and to their swords?
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1891.
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