Yet
we, boldly passive in our country's cause, think we act like Romans if we
can escape his frantic rage.
Long since, O Catiline! ought the consul to have doomed thy life a forfeit
to thy country; and to have directed upon thy own head the mischief thou
hast long been meditating for ours. Could the noble Scipio, when sovereign
pontiff, as a private Roman kill Tiberius Gracchus for a slight
encroachment upon the rights of this country; and shall we, her consuls,
with persevering patience endure Catiline, whose ambition is to desolate a
devoted world with fire and sword?
There was--there was a time, when such was the spirit of Rome, that the
resentment of her magnanimous sons more sternly crushed the Roman traitor,
than the most inveterate enemy. Strong and weighty, O Catiline! is the
decree of the senate we can now produce against you; neither wisdom is
wanting in this state, nor authority in this assembly; but we, the consuls,
we are defective in our duty.
_Cicero._
* * * * *
THE INEXPERIENCED SPEAKER.
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