[4]
The senate once passed a decree that Lucius Opimius, the consul, should take care that the
republic suffered no injury. Not one night elapsed. There was put to death, on some mere
suspicion of disaffection, Caius Gracchus, a man whose family had borne the most unblemished
reputation for many generations. There was slain Marcus Fulvius, a man of consular rank, and
all his children. By a like decree of the senate the safety of the republic was entrusted to
Caius Marius and Lucius Valerius, the consuls. Did not the vengeance of the republic, did not
execution overtake Lucius Saturninus, a tribune of the people, and Caius Servilius, the
praetor, without the delay of one single day? But we, for these twenty days have been
allowing the edge of the senate's authority to grow blunt, as it were. For we are in
possession of a similar decree of the senate, but we keep it locked up in its
parchment—buried, I may say, in the sheath; and according to this decree you ought,
O Catiline, to be put to death this instant. You live,—and you live, not to lay
aside, but to persist in your audacity.
I wish, O conscript fathers, to be merciful; I wish not to appear negligent amid such
danger to the state; but I do now accuse myself of remissness and culpable inactivity.
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