[3]
But if there be any one of that disposition which all men should have, who yet blames me
greatly for the very thing in which my speech exults and triumphs,—namely, that I
did not arrest so capital mortal an enemy rather than let him go,—that is not my
fault, O citizens, but the fault of the times. Lucius Catiline ought to have been visited
with the severest punishment, and to have been put to death long since; and both the customs
of our ancestors, and the rigour of my office, and the republic, demanded this of me; but how
many, think you, were there who did not believe what I reported? how many who out of
stupidity did not think so? how many who even defended him,—how many who, out of
their own depravity, favoured him? If, in truth, I had thought that, if he were removed, all
danger would he removed from you, I would long since have cut off Lucius Catiline, had it
been at the risk, not only of my popularity, but even of my life.
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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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