Latin
Lines 1.105-1.109
Greek and Roman Historians, English 1.105-109
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Yet the unrelenting spirit of Catiline persisted in the same purposes, notwithstanding the precautions that were adopted against him, and though he himself was accused by Lucius Paullus under the Plautian law. At last, with a view to dissemble, and under pretence of clearing his character, as if he had been provoked by some attack, he walked into the senate- house. It was then that Marcus Tullius, the consul, whether alarmed at his presence, or fired with indignation against him, delivered that splendid speech, so beneficial to the republic, which he afterwards wrote and published.
When Cicero sat down, Catiline, being prepared to pretend ignorance of the whole matter, entreated, with downcast looks and suppliant voice, that the Conscript Fathers would not too hastily believe anything against him; saying that he was sprung from such a family, and had so ordered his life from his youth, as to have every happiness in prospect; and that they were not to suppose that he, a patrician, whose services to the Roman people, as well as those of his ancestors, had been so numerous, should want to ruin the state, where Marcus Tullius, a mere adopted citizen of Rome, was eager to preserve it. When he was proceeding to add other invectives, they all raised an outcry against him, and called him an enemy and a traitor. Being thus exasperated, Since I am encompassed by enemies, he exclaimed, and driven to desperation, I will extinguish the flame kindled around me in a general ruin.
32 He then hurried from the senate to his own house; and then, after much reflection with himself, thinking that, as his plots against the consul had been unsuccessful, and as he knew the city to be secured from fire by the watch, his best course would be to augment his army, and make provision for the war before the legions could be raised, he set out in the dead of night, and with a few attendants, to the camp of Manlius. But he left in charge Lentulus and Cethegus, and others of whose prompt determination he was assured, to strengthen the interests of their party in every possible way, to forward the plots against the consul, and to make arrangements for a massacre, for firing the city, and for other destructive operations of war; promising that he himself would shortly advance on the city with a large army.