tronius, and Laeca, and
Curius. All of them were or had been conspirators in the same cause.
Caesar was there too, and Crassus. A fellow conspirator with Catiline
would probably be a Senator. Cicero knew them all. We cannot say that in
this matter Caesar was guilty, but Cicero, no doubt, felt that Caesar's
heart was with Catiline. It was his present task so to thunder with his
eloquence that he should turn these bitter enemies into seeming
friends--to drive Catiline from out of the midst of them, so that it
should seem that he had been expelled by those who were in truth his
brother-conspirators; and this it was that he did.

He declared the nature of the plot, and boldly said that, such being the
facts, Catiline deserved death. "If," he says, "I should order you to be
taken and killed, believe me I should be blamed rather for my delay in
doing so than for my cruelty." He spoke throughout as though all the
power were in his own hands, either to strike or to forbear. But it was
his object to drive him out and not to kill him. "Go," he said; "that
camp of yours and Mallius, your lieutenant, are too long without you.
Take your friends with you. Take them all. Cleanse the city of your
presence. When its walls are between you and me then I shall feel myself
secure. Among us here you may no longer stir yourself. I will not have
it--I will not endure it. If I were to suffer you to be killed, your
followers in the conspiracy would remain here; but if you go out, as I
desire you, this cesspool of filth will drain itself off from out the
city. Do you hesitate to do at my command that which you would fain do
yourself? The Consul requires an enemy to depart from the city. Do you
ask me whether you are to go into exile? I do not order it; but if you
ask my counsel, I advise it." Exile was the severest punishment known by
the Roman law, as applicable to a citizen, and such a punishment it was
in the power of no Consul or other officer of state to inflict. Though
he had taken upon himself the duty of protecting the Republic, still he
could not condemn a citizen. It was to the moral effect of his words
that he must trust: "Non jubeo, sed si me consulis, suadeo." Catiline
heard him to the end, and then, muttering a curse, left the Senate, and
went out of the city. Sallust tells us that he threatened to extinguish,
in the midst of the general ruin he would create, the flames prepared
for his own destruction. Sallust, however, was not pres