"For what is there, O Catiline, that can delight thee any longer in this city, in which there is not one man, without thy band of desperadoes, who does not fear, not one who does not hate thee?—What brand of domestic turpitude is not burnt in upon thy life? What shame of private bearing clings not to thee, for endless infamy? What scenes of impure lust, what deeds of daring crime, what horrible pollution attaches not to thy whole career?—To what young man, once entangled in the meshes of thy corruption, hast thou not tendered the torch of licentiousness, or the steel of murder? Must I say more? Even of late, when thou hadst rendered thy house vacant for new nuptials, by the death of thy late wife, didst thou not overtop that hideous crime, by a crime more incredible? which I pass over, and permit willingly to rest in silence, lest it be known, that in this state, guilt so enormous has existed, and has not been punished. I pass over the ruin of thy fortunes, which all men know to be impending on the next(6) Ides, I proceed to those things which pertain not to the private infamy of thy career, not to thy domestic difficulties and baseness, but to the supreme safety of the state, and to the life and welfare of us all. Can the light of this life, the breath of this heaven, be grateful to thee, Catiline, when thou art conscious that not one of these but knows how thou didst stand armed in the comitium, on the day previous(7) to the calends of January, when Lepidus and Tullus were the Consuls? That thou hadst mustered a band of assassins to slay the Consuls, and the noblest of the citizens? That no relenting of thy heart, no faltering from fear, opposed thy guilt and frenzy, but the wonted good fortune of the commonwealth? And now I pass from these things, for neither are these crimes not known to all, nor have there not been many more recently committed. How many times hast not thou thrust at me while elect, how many times when Consul? How many thrusts of thine so nearly aimed, that they appeared inevitable; have I not shunned by a slight diversion, and, as they say of gladiators, by the movements of my body? Thou doest nothing, attemptest nothing, plannest nothing, which can escape my knowledge, at the moment, when I would know it. Yet thou wilt neither cease from endeavoring nor from plotting. How many times already hath that dagger been wrested from thy hand? how many times hath it fallen by chance, and escaped thy grasp? Still thou canst not be deprived of it, more than an instant’s space!—And yet, I know not with what unhallowed rites it has been consecrated and devoted by thee, that thou shouldst deem it necessary to flesh it in the body of a Consul.