[20]
There is a third class, already touched by age, but still vigorous from constant exercise;
of which class is Manlius himself; whom Catiline is now succeeding. These are men of those
colonies which Sulla established at Faesulae,
which I know to be composed, on the whole, of excellent citizens and brave men; but yet these
are colonists, who, from becoming possessed of unexpected and sudden wealth, boast themselves
extravagantly and insolently; these men, while they build like rich men, while they delight
in farms, in litters, in vast families of slaves, in luxurious banquets, have incurred such
great debts, that, if they would be saved, they must raise Sulla from the dead; and they have
even excited some countrymen, poor and needy men, to entertain the same hopes of plunder as
themselves. And all these men, O Romans, I place in the same class of robbers and banditti.
But, I warn them, let them cease to be mad, and to think of proscriptions and dictatorships;
for such a horror of these times is ingrained into the city, that not even men, but it seems
to me that even the very cattle would refuse to bear them again.
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