Ends of
Good and Evil," a series of dialogues dedicated to M. Brutus, in which
the opinions of the Grecian schools, especially of the Epicureans, the
Stoics, and the Peripatetics, on the Supreme Good, the _Summum Bonum_,
that is, the _finis_, "the end."

[Illustration: AUGUSTUS CAESAR. (_Found at Pompeii._)]

INVECTIVE AGAINST CATILINE.

(_By Cicero._)

How long, O Catiline, wilt thou abuse our patience? How long shalt
thou baffle justice in thy mad career? To what extreme wilt thou carry
thy audacity? Art thou nothing daunted by the nightly watch, posted to
secure the Palatium? Nothing, by the city guards! Nothing, by the
rally of all good citizens? Nothing, by the assembling of the senate
in this fortified place? Nothing, by the averted looks of all here
present? Seest thou not that all thy plots are exposed?--that thy
wretched conspiracy is laid bare to every man's knowledge, here in the
senate?--that we are well aware of thy proceedings of last night; of
the night before; the place, of meeting, the company convoked, the
measures concerted? Alas, the times! Alas, the public morals! The
senate understands all this. The Consul sees it. Yet the traitor
lives! Lives? Ay, truly, and confronts us here in council; takes part
in our deliberations; and, with his measuring eye, marks out each man
of us for slaughter! And we, all this while, strenuous that we are,
think we have amply discharged our duty to the state, if we but _shun_
this madman's sword and fury!

Long since, O Catiline, ought the Consul to have ordered thee to
execution, and brought upon thy own head the ruin thou hast been
meditating against others! There was that virtue once in Rome, that a
wicked citizen was held more execrable than the deadliest foe. We have
a law still, Catiline, for thee. Think not that we are powerless
because forbearing. We have a decree--though it rests among our
archives like a sword in its scabbard--a decree by which thy life
would be made to pay the forfeit of thy crimes. And, should I order
thee to be instantly seized and put to death, I make just doubt
whether all good men would not think it done rather too late, than any
man too cruelly. But, for good reasons, I will yet defer the blow,
long since deserved. _Then_ will I doom thee, when no man is found so
lost, so wicked, nay, so like thyself, but shall confess that it was
justly dealt. While there is one man that dares defend thee, live! But
thou shalt live so bes