[22]
And yet, why am I speaking? that anything may change your purpose? that you may ever amend
your life? that you may meditate flight or think of voluntary banishment? I wish the gods may
give you such a mind; though I see, if alarmed at my words you bring your mind to go into
banishment, what a storm of unpopularity hangs over me, if not at present, while the memory
of your wickedness is fresh, at all events hereafter. But it is worthwhile to incur that, as
long as that is but a private misfortune of my own, and is unconnected with the dangers of
the republic. But we cannot expect that you should be concerned at your own vices, that you
should fear the penalties of the laws, or that you should yield to the necessities of the
republic, for you are not, O Catiline, one whom either shame can recall from infamy, or fear
from danger, or reason from madness.
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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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