7.
But now, what is that life of yours that you are leading? For I will speak to you not so as
to seem influenced by the hatred I ought to feel, but by pity, nothing of which is due to
you. You came a little while ago into the senate in so numerous an assembly, who of so many
friends and connections of yours saluted you? If this in the memory of man never happened to
any one else, are you waiting for insults by word of mouth, when you are overwhelmed by the
most irresistible condemnation of silence? Is it nothing that at your arrival all those seats
were vacated? that all the men of consular rank, who had often been marked out by you for
slaughter, the very moment you sat down, left that part of the benches bare and vacant? With
what feelings do you think you ought to bear this?
[17]
On my
honour, if my slaves feared me as all your fellow-citizens fear you, I should think I must
leave my house. Do not you think you should leave the city? If I saw that I was even
undeservedly so suspected and bated by my fellow-citizens, I would rather flee from their
sight than be gazed at by the hostile eyes of every one. And do you, who, from the
consciousness of your wickedness, know that the hatred of all men is just and has been long
due to you, hesitate to avoid the sight and presence of those men whose minds and senses you
offend? If your parents feared and hated you, and if you could by no means pacify them, you
would, I think, depart somewhere out of their sight. Now, your country, which is the common
parent of all of us, hates and fears you, and has no other opinion of you, than that you are
meditating parricide in her case; and will you neither feel awe of her authority, nor
deference for her judgment, nor fear of her power?
[18]
And she, O Catiline, thus pleads with you, and after a
manner silently speaks to you:—There has now for many years been no crime committed
but by you; no atrocity has taken place without you; you alone unpunished and unquestioned
have murdered the citizens, have harassed and plundered the allies; you alone have had power
not only to neglect all laws and investigations, but to overthrow and break through them.
Your former actions, though they ought not to have been borne, yet I did bear as well as I
could; but now that I should be wholly occupied with fear of you alone, that at every sound I
should dread Catiline, that no design should seem possible to be entertained against me which
does not proceed from your wickedness, this is no longer endurable. Depart, then, and deliver
me from this fear; that, if it be a just one, I may not be destroyed; if an imaginary one,
that at least I may at last cease to fear.
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