9.
You have a consul preserved out of many dangers and plots, and from death itself not for
his own life, but for your safety. All ranks agree for the preservation of the republic with
heart and will, with zeal, with virtue, with their voice. Your common country, besieged by
the hands and weapons of an impious conspiracy, stretches forth her hands to you as a
suppliant; to you she recommends herself to you she recommends the lives of all the citizens,
and the citadel, and the Capitol, and the altars of the household gods, and the eternal
inextinguishable fire of Vesta, and all the temples of all the gods, and the altars and the
walls and the houses of the city. Moreover, your own lives, those of your wives and children,
the fortunes of all men, your homes, your hearth; are this day interested in your decision.
[19]
You have a leader mindful of you, forgetful of
himself—an opportunity which is not always given to men; you have all ranks, all
individuals, the whole Roman people, (a thing which in civil transactions we see this day for
the first time,) full of one and the same feeling. Think with what great labour this our
dominion was founded, by what virtue this our liberty was established, by what kind favour of
the gods our fortunes were aggrandized and ennobled, and how nearly one night destroyed them
all. That this may never hereafter be able not only to be done, but not even to be thought of
you must this day take care. And I have spoken thus, not in order to stir you up who almost
outrun me myself but that my voice, which ought to be the chief voice in the republic, may
appear to have fulfilled the duty which belongs to me as consul.
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