"Now then, what life is this of thine? For I will now address thee, not so that I may seem moved by that detestation which I feel toward thee, but by compassion, no portion of which is thy due. But a moment since, thou didst come into the Senate, and which one man, from so vast a concourse, from thine own chosen and familiar friends, saluted thee? If this has befallen no one, within the memory of man, wilt thou await loud contumely, condemned already by the most severe sentence of this silence? What wouldst thou have, when all those seats around thee were left vacant on thy coming? When all those Consulars, whom thou so frequently hadst designated unto slaughter, as soon as thou didst take thy seat, left all that portion of the benches bare and vacant? With what spirit, in one word, can thou deem this endurable? By Hercules! did my slaves so dread me, as all thy fellow citizens dread thee, I should conceive it time for leaving my own house—dost thou not hold it time to leave this city?—And if I felt myself without just cause suspected, and odious to my countrymen, I should choose rather to be beyond the reach of their vision, than to be gazed upon by hostile eyes of all men. Dost thou hesitate, when conscious of thine own crimes thou must acknowledge that the hate of all is just, and due long ago—dost thou, I say, hesitate to avoid the presence and the sight of those whose eyes and senses thine aspect every day is wounding? If thine own parents feared and hated thee, and could by no means be reconciled, thou wouldst, I presume, withdraw thyself some-whither beyond the reach of their eyes—now thy country, which is the common parent of us all, dreads and detests thee, and has passed judgment on thee long ago, as meditating nothing but her parricide. Wilt thou now neither revere her authority, nor obey her judgment, nor yet dread her violence? Since thus she now deals with thee, Catiline, thus speaks to thee in silence. "’No deed of infamy hath been done in these many years, unless through thee—no deed of atrocity without thee—to thee alone, the murder of many citizens, to thee alone the spoliation and oppression of our allies, hath been free and unpunished. Thou hast been powerful not only to escape laws and prosecutions, but openly to break through and overturn them. To these things, though indeed intolerable, I have submitted as best I might—but it can now no longer be endured that I should be in one eternal dread of thee only—that Catiline, on what alarm soever, alone should be the source of terror—that no treason against me can be imagined, such as should be revolting to thy desperate criminality. Wherefore begone, and liberate me from this terror, so that, if true, I may not be ruined; if false I may at least shake with fear no longer.’