[42]
When I saw all this (for there was no secret about it), that the senate,
without which the constitution could not stand, was entirely
abolished out of the city; that the consuls whose duty it was to be the
leaders of the public counsels, had so managed matters that by their means
the great public council was entirely destroyed; that those men who had the
greatest influence were held up to every assembly, (falsely indeed, but
still in a way calculated to strike my friends with great fear,) as the
great approvers of my ruin; that assemblies were held every day in
opposition to me; that no one ever uttered a word in defence of me or of the
republic that the standards of the legions were believed to be unfurled
against your lives and properties, (falsely indeed, but still they were
believed to be so,) that the veteran troops of the conspirators, and that
ill-omened army of Catiline, once routed and defeated, was now recruited
under a new leader and under the existing unexpected chances of
circumstances;—when I saw all these things, what was I to do, O
judges?
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1891.
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