3.
[5]
All these things the witnesses have informed you of; the prisoners have confessed, you by
many judgments have already decided; first, because you have thanked me in unprecedented
language, and have passed a vote that the conspiracy of abandoned men has been laid open by
my virtue and diligence; secondly, because you have compelled Publius Lentulus to abdicate
the praetorship; again, because you have voted that he and the others about whom you have
decided should be given into custody; and above all because you have decreed a supplication
in my name, an honour which has never been paid to any one before acting in a civil capacity;
last of all because yesterday you gave most ample rewards to the ambassadors of the
Allobroges and to Titus Vulturcius; all which acts are such that they, who have been given
into custody by name, without any doubt seem already condemned by you.
[6]
But I have determined to refer the business to you as a fresh matter, O conscript fathers,
both as to the fact, what you think of it and as to the punishment, what you vote. I will
state what it behoves the consul to state. I have seen for a long time great madness existing
in the republic, and new designs being formed, and evil passions being stirred up; but I
never thought that so great, so destructive a conspiracy as this was being meditated by
citizens. Now to whatever point your minds and opinions incline, you must decide before
night. You see how great a crime has been made known to you; if you think that but few are
implicated in it you are greatly mistaken; this evil has spread wider than you think; it has
spread not only throughout Italy, but it has even crossed the Alps, and creeping stealthily
on, it has already occupied many of the provinces; it can by no means be crushed by
tolerating it, and by temporising with it; however you determine on chastising it, you must
act with promptitude.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.