[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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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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