Authors, Latin -- Biography; Cicero, Marcus Tullius; Statesmen -- Rome -- Biography
Two strong points have been made for Catiline in Mr. Beesly's defence.
His ancestors had been Consuls when the forefathers of patricians of a
later date "were clapping their chapped hands and throwing up their
sweaty nightcaps." That scorn against the people should be expressed by
the aristocrat Casca was well supposed by Shakspeare; but how did a
liberal of the present day bring himself to do honor to his hero by such
allusions? In truth, however, the glory of ancient blood and the
disgrace attaching to the signs of labor are ideas seldom relinquished
even by democratic minds. A Howard is nowhere lovelier than in America,
or a sweaty nightcap less relished. We are then reminded how Catiline
died fighting, with the wounds all in front; and are told that the
"world has generally a generous word for the memory of a brave man dying
for his cause, be that cause what it will; but for Catiline none!" I
think there is a mistake in the sentiment expressed here. To die readily
when death must come is but a little thing, and is done daily by the
poorest of mankind. The Romans could generally do it, and so can the
Chinese. A Zulu is quite equal to it, and people lower in civilization
than Chinese or Zulus. To encounter death, or the danger of death, for
the sake of duty--when the choice is there; but duty and death are
preferred to ignominious security, or, better still, to security which
shall bring with it self-abasement--that is grand. When I hear that a
man "rushed into the field and, foremost fighting, fell," if there have
been no adequate occasion, I think him a fool. If it be that he has
chosen to hurry on the necessary event, as was Catiline's case, I
recognize him as having been endowed with certain physical attributes
which are neither glorious nor disgraceful. That Catiline was
constitutionally a brave man no one has denied. Rush, the murderer, was
one of the bravest men of whom I remember to have heard. What credit is
due to Rush is due to Catiline.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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