14 In so populous and
so corrupt a city, Catiline, as it was very easy to do, kept about him, like a
body-guard, crowds of the unprincipled and desperate. For all those shameless,
libertine, and profligate characters, who had dissipated their patrimonies by
gaming, luxury, and sensuality; all who had contracted heavy debts, to purchase
immunity for their crimes or offences; all assassins or sacrilegious persons
from every quarter, convicted or dreading conviction for their evil deeds; all,
besides, whom their tongue or their hand maintained by perjury or civil
bloodshed; all, in fine, whom wickedness, poverty, or a guilty conscience
disquieted, were the associates and intimate friends of Catiline. And if any
one, as yet of unblemished character, fell into his society, he was presently
rendered, by daily intercourse and temptation, similar and equal to the rest.
But it was the young whose acquaintance he chiefly courted; as their minds,
ductile and unsettled from their age, were easily ensnared by his stratagems.
For as the passions of each, according to his years, appeared excited, he
furnished mistresses to some, bought horses and dogs for others, and spared, in
a word, neither his purse nor his character, if he could but make them his
devoted and trustworthy supporters. There were some, I know, who thought that
the youth, who frequented the house of Catiline, were guilty of crimes against
nature; but this report arose rather from other causes than from any evidence
of the fact.
|