4.
What I have been waiting for, that I have gained,—namely, that you should all see
that a conspiracy has been openly formed against the republic; unless, indeed, there be any
one who thinks that those who are like Catiline do not agree with Catiline. There is not any
longer room for lenity; the business itself demands severity. One thing, even now, I will
grant,—let them depart, let them be gone. Let them not suffer the unhappy Catiline
to pine away for want of them. I will tell them the road. He went by the Aurelian road. If
they make haste, they will catch him by the evening.
[7]
O happy
republic, if it can cast forth these dregs of the republic! Even now, when Catiline alone is
got rid of; the republic seems to me relieved and refreshed; for what evil or wickedness can
be devised or imagined which he did not conceive? What prisoner, what gladiator, what thief;
what assassin, what parricide, what forger of wills, what cheat, what debauchee, what
spendthrift, what adulterer, what abandoned woman, what corrupter of youth, what profligate,
what scoundrel can be found in all Italy, who does not avow that he has been on terms of
intimacy with Catiline? What murder has been committed for years without him? What nefarious
act of infamy that has not been done by him?
[8]
But in what other man were there ever so many allurements for youth as in him, who both
indulged in infamous love for others, and encouraged their infamous affections for himself,
promising to some enjoyment of their lust, to others the death of their parents, and not only
instigating them to iniquity, but even assisting them in it. But now, how suddenly had he
collected, not only out of the city, but even out of the country, a number of abandoned men?
No one, not only at Rome, but in every corner of
Italy, was overwhelmed with debt whom he did not
enlist in this incredible association of wickedness.
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