et, so surrounded, so scrutinized, by the
vigilant guards that I have placed around thee, that thou shalt not
stir a foot against the Republic without my knowledge. There shall be
eyes to detect thy slightest movement, and ears to catch thy wariest
whisper, of which thou shalt not dream. The darkness of night shall
not cover thy treason--the walls of privacy shall not stifle its
voice. Baffled on all sides, thy most secret counsels clear as
noon-day, what canst thou now have in view? Proceed, plot, conspire,
as thou wilt; there is nothing you can contrive, nothing you can
propose, nothing you can attempt which I shall not know, hear, and
promptly understand. Thou shalt soon be made aware that I am even more
active in providing for the preservation of the state than thou in
plotting its destruction!--_First Oration._

EXPULSION OF CATILINE FROM ROME.

(_By Cicero._)

At length, Romans, we are rid of Catiline! We have driven him forth,
drunk with fury, breathing mischief, threatening to revisit us with
fire and sword. He is gone; he is fled; he has escaped; he has broken
away. No longer, within the very walls of the city, shall he plot her
ruin. We have forced him from secret plots into open rebellion. The
bad citizen is now the avowed traitor. His flight is the confession of
his treason! Would that his attendants had not been so few! Be speedy,
ye companions of his dissolute pleasures; be speedy, and you may
overtake him before night, on the Aurelian road. Let him not languish,
deprived of your society. Haste to join the congenial crew that
compose his army; _his_ army, I say--for who doubts that the army
under Manlius expect Catiline for their leader? And such an army!
Outcasts from honor, and fugitives from debt; gamblers and felons;
miscreants, whose dreams are of rapine, murder, and conflagration!

Against these gallant troops of your adversary, prepare, O Romans,
your garrisons and armies; and first to that maimed and battered
gladiator oppose your consuls and generals; next, against that
miserable, outcast horde, lead forth the strength and flower of all
Italy! On the one side, chastity contends; on the other wantonness;
here purity, there pollution; here integrity, there treachery; here
piety, there profaneness; here constancy, there rage; here honesty,
there baseness; here continence, there lust; in short, equity,
temperance, fortitude, prudence, struggle with iniquity, luxury,
cowardice, rashness; every v