9.
[21]
Here who, O Romans can there be so obstinate against the
truth, so headstrong, so void of sense, as to deny that all these things which we see, and
especially this city, is governed by the divine authority and power of the immortal gods?
Forsooth, when this answer had been given, that massacre, and conflagration, and ruin was
prepared for the republic; and that, too, by profligate citizens, which, from the enormity of
the wickedness, appeared incredible to some people, you found that it had not only been
planned by wicked citizens, but had even been undertaken and commenced. And is not this fact
so present that it appears to have taken place by the express will of the good and mighty
Jupiter, that, when this day, early in the morning, both the conspirators and their accusers
were being led by my command through the forum to the Temple of Concord, at that very time
the statue was being erected? And when it was set up and turned towards you and towards the
senate the senate and you yourselves saw everything which had been planned against the
universal safety brought to light and made manifest.
[22]
And on this account they deserve even greater hatred and
greater punishment, for having attempted to apply their fatal and wicked fire, not only to
your houses and homes, but even to the shrines and temples of the Gods. And if I were to say
that it was I who resisted them, I should take too much to myself and ought not to be borne.
He—he, Jupiter, resisted them, He determined that the Capitol should be safe, he
saved these temples, he saved this city, he saved all of you. It is under the
guidance of the immortal gods, O Romans, that I have cherished the intention and desires
which I have, and have arrived at such undeniable proofs. Surely, that tampering with the
Allobroges would never have taken place, so important a matter would never have been so madly
entrusted, by Lentulus and the rest of our internal enemies, to strangers and foreigners,
such letters would never have been written, unless all prudence had been taken by the
immortal gods from such terrible audacity. What shall I say? That Gauls, men from a state
scarcely at peace with us, the only nation existing which seems both to be able to make war
on the Roman people, and not to be unwilling to do so,—that they should disregard
the hope of empire and of the greatest success voluntarily offered to them by patricians; and
should prefer your safety to their own power—do you not think that that was caused
by divine interposition? especially when they could have destroyed us, not by fighting, but
by keeping silence.
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