As no verbal report of any other of Cæsar’s speeches has come down to us, it is interesting to give an extract from Sallust’s version, which may be taken as an accurate outline, for, owing to Cicero’s personal interest in the matter, the whole proceedings of the Senate during this crucial debate were taken down in shorthand. After deprecating the use of rhetoric as likely to prejudice the judgment, and remarking that eloquent pictures of the horrors of war and rebellion were alien to the matter in hand, Cæsar’s words were: “And indeed, for the crimes we have to deal with, no penalty is in itself too cruel; death at least cannot be so, for it puts an end to the misery of this life and brings no torment in another. But the penalty will be looked on as cruel, simply because it is unconstitutional. It has been over and over again forbidden by express legislation to scourge or kill a citizen without trial. You do not propose to scourge these men, presumably because the law forbids it. Why, then, do you propose to put them to death? Both penalties are equally illegal. I must remind you also of the precedent your action will create. Once place such a power as you claim in the hands of a government and you cannot put a limit on its use; it may be and will be used against good and bad alike, as it was by the Thirty at Athens and in our own recollection by Sulla. I do not fear this now or with Cicero as Consul; but I will not answer for the power of the sword in the hands of future Consuls. Let us abide by the law and not seek in a panic to overrule it. My advice is, not indeed that we let these men go, and thus increase the resources of Catiline, but that we commit them for life to close custody in the largest Italian towns, securing them by holding over each town the heaviest possible penalty in case they should escape. And I further propose that we pass a decree embodying our opinion that no proposal touching them shall be made henceforth either in Senate or assembly; and that disregard of the decree shall be treated by the Senate as high treason against the state.”