8.
[19]
If, as I have said, your country were thus to address you, ought she not to obtain her
request, even if she were not able to enforce it? What shall I say of your having given
yourself into custody? what of your having said, for the sake of avoiding suspicion, that you
were willing to dwell in the house of Marcus Lepidus? And when you were not received by him,
you dared even to come to me, and begged me to keep you in my house; and when you had
received answer from me that I could not possibly be safe in the same house with you, when I
considered myself in great danger as long as we were in the same city, you came to Quintus
Metellus, the praetor, and being rejected by him, you passed on to your associate, that most
excellent man, Marcus Marcellus, who would be, I suppose you thought, most diligent in
guarding you, most sagacious hi suspecting you, and most bold in punishing you; but how far
can we think that man ought to be from bonds and imprisonment who has already judged himself
deserving of being given into custody?
[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?
[21]
But had I said the same to this excellent young man,
Publius Sextius, or to that brave man, Marcus Marcellus, before this time the senate would
deservedly have laid violent hands on me, consul though I be, in this very temple. But to
you, Catiline, while they are quiet they approve, while they permit me to speak they vote,
while they are silent they are loud and eloquent. And not they alone, whose authority
forsooth is dear to you, though their lives are unimportant, but the Roman knights too, those
most honourable and excellent men, and the other virtuous citizens who are now surrounding
the senate, whose numbers you could see, whose desires you could know, and whose voices you a
few minutes ago could hear,—yes, whose very hands and weapons I have for some time
been scarcely able to keep off from you; but those, too, I will easily bring to attend you to
the gates if you leave these places you have been long desiring to lay waste.
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