"If thy country should thus, as I have said, parley with thee, should she not obtain what she demands, even if she lack force to compel it? What more shall I say, when thou didst offer thyself to go into some private custody? What, when to shun suspicion, thou didst profess thy willingness to take up thy residence under the roof of Manius Lepidus? Refused by whom, thou hadst audacity to come to me, and request that I would admit thee to my house. And when thou didst receive from me this answer, that I could not exist within the same house with that man, whose presence even inside the same city walls, I esteemed vast peril to my life, thou didst then go to the prætor Quintus Metellus; and, then, repulsed by him, to Marcus Marcellus, thine own comrade, a virtuous man truly, one whom past doubt thou didst deem likely to be most vigilant in guarding, most crafty in suspecting, most strenuous in bringing thee to justice. And how far shall that man be believed distant from deserving chains and a dungeon, who judges himself to be worthy of safekeeping?—Since, then, these things are so, dost hesitate, O Catiline, since here thou canst not tarry with an equal mind, to depart for some other land, and give that life, rescued from many just and deserved penalties, to solitude and exile? ’Lay the matter,’ thou sayest, ’before the Senate,’ for that it is which thou requirest, ’and if this order shall command thee into banishment, thou wilt obey their bidding.’ I will not lay it before them—for to do so is repugnant to my character, yet I will so act, that thou shalt clearly see what these think of thee. Depart from the city, Catiline! Deliver the state from terror! begone into banishment, if that be the word for which thou tarriest!" Then the great Orator paused once again, not to breathe, though the vehement and uninterrupted torrent of his eloquence, might well have required an interval of rest, but to give the confounded listener occasion to note the feelings of the assembled Senate, perfectly in accordance with his words. It was but a moment, however, that he paused, and, that ended, again burst out the thunderous weight of his magnificent invective.