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| Caius Sallustius Crispus Conspiracy of Catiline IntraText CT - Text |
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| 31 By such
proceedings as these the citizens were struck with alarm, and the appearance of
the city was changed. In place of that extreme gaiety and dissipation, to which
long tranquillity had given rise, a sudden gloom spread over all classes; they
became anxious and agitated; they felt secure neither in any place, nor with
any person; they were not at war, yet enjoyed no peace; each measured the
public danger by his own fear. The women, also, to whom, from the extent of the
empire, the dread of war was new, gave way to lamentation, raised supplicating
hands to heaven, mourned over their infants, made constant inquiries, trembled
at everything, and, forgetting their pride and their pleasures, felt nothing
but alarm for themselves and their country. Yet the unrelenting spirit of Catiline persisted in the same purposes, notwithstanding the precautions that were adopted against him, and though he himself was accused by Lucius Paullus under the Plautian law. At last, with a view to dissemble, and under pretence of clearing his character, as if he had been provoked by some attack, he walked into the senate-house. It was then that Marcus Tullius, the consul, whether alarmed at his presence, or fired with indignation against him, delivered that splendid speech, so beneficial to the republic, which he afterwards wrote and published. When Cicero sat down, Catiline, being prepared to pretend ignorance of the whole matter, entreated, with downcast looks and suppliant voice, that “the Conscript Fathers would not too hastily believe anything against him;” saying “that he was sprung from such a family, and had so ordered his life from his youth, as to have every happiness in prospect; and that they were not to suppose that he, a patrician, whose services to the Roman people, as well as those of his ancestors, had been so numerous, should want to ruin the state, where Marcus Tullius, a mere adopted citizen of Rome, was eager to preserve it.” When he was proceeding to add other invectives, they all raised an outcry against him, and called him an enemy and a traitor. Being thus exasperated, “Since I am encompassed by enemies,” he exclaimed, “and driven to desperation, I will extinguish the flame kindled around me in a general ruin.” |
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