[69]
And in this place I appeal to you, O Quintus Catulus; 1 for I am speaking of your most honourable
and most splendid monument. You ought to take upon yourself not only the severity of
a judge with respect to this crime, but something like the vehemence of an enemy and
an accuser. For, through the kindness of the senate and people of Rome, your honour is connected with that temple.
Your name is consecrated at the same time as that temple in the everlasting
recollection of men. It is by you that this case is to be encountered; by you, that
this labour is to be undergone, in order that the Capitol, as it has been restored
more magnificently, may also be adorned more splendidly than it was originally; that
then that fire may seem to have been sent from heaven, not to destroy the temple of
the great and good Jupiter, but to demand
one for him more noble and more magnificent.
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1 The Capitol had been burnt in the civil war between Marius and Sulla, and it was now being restored under the superintendence of Quintus Catulus, to whom that office had been entrusted by the senate.
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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