M. Tullius Cicero, In Catilinam, Charles Duke Yonge (Translator), 1.15

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[15]
Can the limit of this life, O Catiline, can the breath of this atmosphere be pleasant to you, when you know that there is not one man of those here present who is ignorant that you, on the last day of the year, when Lepidus and Tullus were consuls, stood in the assembly armed; that you had prepared your hand for the slaughter of the consuls and chief men of the state, and that no reason or fear of yours hindered your crime and madness, but the fortune of the republic? And I say no more of these things, for they are not unknown to every one. How often have you endeavoured to slay me, both as consul elect and as actual consul? how many shots of yours, so aimed that they seemed impossible to be escaped, have I avoided by some slight stooping aside, and some dodging, as it were, of my body? You attempt nothing, you execute nothing, you devise nothing that call be kept hid from me at the proper time; and yet you do not cease to attempt and to contrive.

In Catilinam. M. Tullius Cicero. Charles Duke Yonge (Translator). London. 1856.

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Current edition Perseus

Against L. Catiline (English) (Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 2. Yonge, Charles Duke, translator. London: Bell, 1856.)

Editions (1)

In L. Catilinam Perseus (Cicero. M. Tulli Ciceronis Orationes, Volume 1. Clark, Albert Curtis, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908.) — 1.15 focus

[15] potestne tibi haec lux, Catilina, aut huius caeli spiritus esse iucundus, cum scias esse horum¹ neminem qui nesciat² te pridie Kalendas Ianuarias Lepido et Tullo consulibus stetisse in comitio cum telo, manum consulum et principum civitatis interficiendorum causa paravisse, sceleri ac furori tuo non mentem aliquam aut timorem tuum³ sed Fortunam⁴ populi Romani obstitisse? ac iam illa omitto — neque enim sunt aut obscura aut non multa commissa postea — quotiens tu me designatum, quotiens vero⁵ consulem interficere conatus es!⁶ quot ego tuas petitiones ita coniectas ut vitari posse non viderentur parva quadam declinatione et, ut aiunt, corpore effugi! nihil agis⁷, nihil adsequeris⁸, neque tamen conari ac velle desistis.

Commentary

Commentary on First Oration against Catiline (Select Orations of Cicero (Allen and Greenough's Edition). Greenough, James Bradstreet; Kittredge, George Lyman, editors. Boston, London: Ginn & Company, 1897.) focus

cum : causal, but best translated by when.

pridie Kalendas Januarias , etc.: Dec.31, B.C. 66. The act here mentioned seems to have been in preparation for a rising that had been planned by Catiline for the next day, Jan. 1, B.C. 65. On this day the consuls Cotta and Torquatus entered upon their office, and it was the intention of Catiline to take advantage of their inauguration to murder them and seize the government. The plot got whispered about, and its execution was put off to Feb. 5, when it failed again through Catiline's precipitancy in giving the word.

cum telo (a technical expression), weapon in hand.

manum : a band (of assassins).

interficiendorum causi : § 504 , b (298, c); cf. B. 338, I, c; G. 428, R.2; H-B. 612, I.

mentem aliquam , some change of mini

aut . . . aut , etc., either obscure or few.

non multa , etc., i.e. they were too well known to need recapitulation, and too numerous to admit of it.

commissa , which you have perpetrated.

petitiones , thrusts: the word regularly used for the attack of a gladiator. Cicero uses this and similar terms as an affront to Catiline.

ita conjectas , etc., so aimed that they seemed impossible to be shunned. The Latin has no adj. for "impossible."

corpore , i.e. dodging with the body (a common colloquialism —hence ut aiunt ).

M. Tullius Cicero In Catilinam 1.15

Charles Duke Yonge (Translator)

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