its details, naming even the very day fixed for the outbreak. The
arch-conspirator had the audacity to be present, and Cicero addressed him
personally in the eloquent invective which has come to us as his "First
Oration against Catiline". His object was to drive his enemy from the
city to the camp of his partisans, and thus to bring matters at once to a
crisis for which he now felt himself prepared. This daily state of public
insecurity and personal danger had lasted too long, he said:

"Therefore, let these conspirators at once take their side; let them
separate themselves from honest citizens, and gather themselves together
somewhere else; let them put a wall between us, as I have often said. Let
us have them no longer thus plotting the assassination of a consul in his
own house, overawing our courts of justice with armed bands, besieging the
senate-house with drawn swords, collecting their incendiary stores to burn
our city. Let us at last be able to read plainly in every Roman's face
whether he be loyal to his country or no. I may promise you this,
gentlemen of the Senate--there shall be no lack of diligence on the part
of your consuls; there will be, I trust, no lack of dignity and firmness
on your own, of spirit amongst the Roman knights, of unanimity amongst all
honest men, but that when Catiline has once gone from us, everything
will be not only discovered and brought into the light of day, but also
crushed,--ay, and punished. Under such auspices, I bid you, Catiline. go
forth to wage your impious and unhallowed war.--go, to the salvation of
the state, to your own overthrow and destruction, to the ruin of all who
have joined you in your great wickedness and treason. And thou, great
Jupiter, whose worship Romulus founded here coeval with our city;--whom we
call truly the 'Stay'[1] of our capital and our empire; thou wilt protect
thine own altars and the temples of thy kindred gods, the walls and
roof-trees of our homes, the lives and fortunes of our citizens, from yon
man and his accomplices. These enemies of all good men, invaders of their