35 “Lucius Catiline
to Quintus Catulus. Your eminent integrity, known to me by experience, gives a
pleasing confidence, in the midst of great perils, to my present
recommendation. I have determined therefore, to make no formal defense with
regard to my new course of conduct; yet I was resolved, though conscious of no
guilt, to offer you some explanation, which, on my word of honor, you may
receive as true. Provoked by injuries and indignities, since, being robbed of
the fruit of my labor and exertion, I did not obtain the post of honor due to
me, I have undertaken, according to my custom, the public cause of the
distressed. Not but that I could have paid, out of my own property, the debts
contracted on my own security; while the generosity of Orestilla, out of her
own fortune and her daughter’s, would discharge those incurred on the security
of others. But because I saw unworthy men ennobled with honors, and myself
proscribed on groundless suspicion, I have, for this very reason, adopted a
course, amply justifiable in my present circumstances, for preserving what
honor is left to me. When I was proceeding to write more, intelligence was
brought that violence is preparing against me. I now commend and entrust
Orestilla to your protection; entreating you, by your love for your own
children, to defend her from injury. Farewell.”
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