city and empire, repel this man and his companions from your altars and from the other temples,—from the houses and walls of the city,—from the lives and fortunes of all the citizens; and overwhelm all the enemies of good men, the foes of the republic, the robbers of Italy, men bound together by a treaty and infamous alliance of crimes, dead and alive, with eternal punishments.
IV
THE SECOND ORATION AGAINST CATILINE
(63 B.C.)
At length, O Romans, we have dismissed from the city or driven out or, when he was departing of his own accord, we have pursued with words Lucius Catiline, mad with audacity, breathing wickedness, impiously planning mischief to his country, threatening fire and sword to you and to the city. He has gone, he has departed, he has disappeared, he has rushed out.[1] No injury will now be prepared against these walls within the walls themselves by that monster and prodigy of wickedness. And we have, without controversy,
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- ↑ In the "argument" prefixed to the second oration against Catiline, it is said that when Catiline alleged his high birth, and the stake which he had in the prosperity of the commonwealth, as arguments to make it appear improbable that he should seek to injure it, and called Cicero a stranger, and a new inhabitant of Rome, the senate interrupted him with a general outcry, calling him
