[11]
Great thanks are due
to the immortal gods, and to this very Jupiter Stator, in whose temple we are, the most
ancient protector of thus city, that we have already so often escaped so foul, so horrible,
and so deadly an enemy to the republic. But the safety of the commonwealth must not be too
often allowed to be risked on one man. As long as you, O Catiline, plotted against me while I
was the consul elect, I defended myself not with a public guard, but by my own private
diligence. When, in the next consular comitia, you wished to
slay me when I was actually consul, and your competitors also, in the Campus Martius, I checked your nefarious attempt by the
assistance and resources of my own friends, without exciting any disturbance publicly. In
short, as often as you attacked me, I by myself opposed you, and that, too, though I saw that
my ruin was connected with great disaster to the republic.
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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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