We must admit that Catiline was guilty of an attempt to overthrow the laws of his country by violence; but in doing so he was only following the examples of a Marius and a Sylla. His dreams were of a revolutionary despotism, of the ruin of the aristocratic party, and, according to Dio Cassius,[996] of a change in the constitution of the Republic, and of the subjugation of the allies. Yet would his success have been a misfortune: a permanent good can never be the production of hands that are not clean.[997] [Sidenote: Error of Cicero.] VI. Cicero believed that he had destroyed an entire party. He was wrong: he had only foiled a conspiracy, and disencumbered a grand cause of the rash men who were compromising it. The judicial murder of the conspirators gave them new life, and one day the tomb of Catiline was found covered with flowers.[998] Laws may be justly broken when society is hurrying on to its own ruin, and a desperate remedy is indispensable for its salvation; and again, when the government, supported by the mass of the people, becomes the organ of its interests and their hopes. But when, on the contrary, a nation is divided into factions, and the government represents only one of them, its duty, if it intends to foil a plot, is to bind itself to the most exact and scrupulous respect for the law; for at such a juncture every measure not sanctioned by the letter of the law appears to be due rather to a selfish feeling of interest than to a desire for the general weal; and the majority of the public, indifferent or hostile, is always disposed to pity the accused, whoever he may be, and to blame the severity with which he was put down. Cicero was intoxicated with his success. His vanity made him ridiculous.[999] He thought himself as great as Pompey, and wrote to him with all the pride of a conqueror. But he received a chilling answer,[1000] and in a short time saw the accomplishment of Cæsar’s prophetic words: “If even the greatest criminals are too severely dealt with, the heinousness of their offence is lost in the severity of their sentence.”[1001] Even before the battle of Pistoja, whilst the pursuit of the adherents of Catiline was still being prosecuted, public opinion was already hostile to him who had urged the measure, and Metellus Nepos, sent recently from Asia by Pompey, openly found fault with Cicero’s conduct. When the latter, on quitting office, wished to address the people for the purpose of glorifying his consulship, Metellus, who had been elected tribune, silenced him with these words: “We will not hear the defence of the man who refused to hear the defence of accused persons,” and ordered him to confine himself to the usual oath, that he had in no way contravened the laws. “I swear,” answered Cicero, “that I have saved the Republic.” However loudly this boastful exclamation might be applauded by Cato and the bystanders, who hail him with Father of his Country, their enthusiasm will have but a short duration.[1002]