1.
You see this day, O Romans, the republic, and all your lives, your goods, your fortunes,
your wives and children, this home of most illustrious empire, thus most fortunate and
beautiful city, by the great love of the immortal gods for you, by my labours and counsels
and dangers, snatched from fire and sword, and almost from the very jaws of fate, and
preserved and restored to you.
[2]
And if those days on which we are preserved are not less
pleasant to us, or less illustrious, than those on which we are born, because the joy of
being saved is certain, the good fortune of being born uncertain, and because we are born
without feeling it, but we are preserved with great delight; yes; since we have, by our
affection and by our good report, raised to the immortal gods that Romulus who built this
city, he, too, who has preserved this city, built by him, and embellished as you see it,
ought to be held in terror by you and your posterity; for we have extinguished flames which
were almost laid under and placed around the temples and shrines, and houses and walls of the
whole city; we have turned the edge of swords drawn against the republic, and have turned
aside their points from your throats.
[3]
And since all this has
been displayed in the senate, and made manifest, and detected by me, I will now explain it
briefly, that you, O citizens, that are as yet ignorant of it, and are in suspense, may be
able to see how great the danger was, how evident and by what means it was detected and
arrested. First of all, since Catiline, a few days ago, burst out of the city, when he had
left behind the companions of his wickedness, the active leaders of this infamous war, I have
continually watched and taken care, O Romans, of the means by which we might be safe amid
such great and such carefully concealed treachery.
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