[15]
Can the limit of this life, O Catiline, can the breath
of this atmosphere be pleasant to you, when you know that there is not one man of those here
present who is ignorant that you, on the last day of the year, when Lepidus and Tullus were
consuls, stood in the assembly armed; that you had prepared your hand for the slaughter of
the consuls and chief men of the state, and that no reason or fear of yours hindered your
crime and madness, but the fortune of the republic? And I say no more of these things, for
they are not unknown to every one. How often have you endeavoured to slay me, both as consul
elect and as actual consul? how many shots of yours, so aimed that they seemed impossible to
be escaped, have I avoided by some slight stooping aside, and some dodging, as it were, of my
body? You attempt nothing, you execute nothing, you devise nothing that call be kept hid from
me at the proper time; and yet you do not cease to attempt and to contrive.
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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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