[196] Pro Murena, xxv.
[197] “Darent operam consules ne quid detrimenti
respublica capiat”
[198] Catilinaria, xxxi.
[199] Quintilian,lib.xii, 10: “Quem tamen
et suorum homines temporum incessere audebant, ut
tumidiorem, et asianum, et redundantem.”
[200] Orator., xxxvii.: “A nobis homo audacissimus
Catilina in senatu accusatus obmutuit.”
[201] 2 Catilinaria, xxxi.
[202] In the first of them to the Senate, chap.ix.,
he declares this to Catiline himself: “Si
mea voce perterritus ire in exsilium animum induxeris,
quanta tempestas invidiae nobis, si minus in praesens
tempus, recenti memoria scelerum tuorum, at in posteritatem
impendeat.” He goes on to declare that he
will endure all that, if by so doing he can save the
Republic “Sed est mihi tanti; dummodo ista privata
sit calamitas, et a reipublicae periculis sejungatui”
[203] Sallust, Catilinaria, xli.: “Itaque
Q. Fabio Sangae cujus patrocinio civitas plurimum
utebatur rem omnem uti cognoverant aperiunt.”
[204] Horace, Epo. xvi., 6: “Novisque rebus
infidelis Allobrox.” The unhappy Savoyard
has from this line been known through ages as a conspirator,
false even to his fellow-conspirators. Juvenal,
vii., 214: “Rufum qui toties Ciceronem
Allobroga dixit.” Some Rufus, acting as
advocate, had thought to put down Cicero by calling
him an Allobrogian.
[205] The words in which this honor was conferred
he himself repeats: “Quod urbem incendiis,
caede cives, Italiam bello liberassem”—”
because I had rescued the city from fire, the citizens
from slaughter, and Italy from war.”
[206] It is necessary in all oratory to read something
between the lines. It is allowed to the speaker
to produce effect by diminishing and exaggeratng.
I think we should detract something from the praises
bestowed on Catiline’s military virtues.
The bigger Catiline could be made to appear, the greater
would be the honor of having driven him out of the
city.
[207] In Catilinam, iii., xi.
[208] In Catilinam, ibid., xii.: “Ne mihi
noceant vestrum est providere.”
[209] “Prince of the Senate” was an honorary
title, conferred on some man of mark as a dignity—at
this period on some ex-Consul; it conferred no power.
Cicero, the Consul who had convened the Senate, called
on the speakers as he thought fit.
[210] Caesar, according to Sallust, had referred to
the Lex Porcia. Cicero alludes, and makes Caesar
allude, to the Lex Sempronia. The Porcian law,
as we are told by Livy, was passed B.C. 299, and forbade
that a Roman should be scourged or put to death.
The Lex Sempronia was introduced by C. Gracchus, and
enacted that the life of a citizen should not be taken
without the voice of the citizens.
[211] Velleius Paterculus, xxxvi.: “Consulatui
Ciceronis non mediocre adjecit decus natus eo anno
Divus Augustus.”
