and greed, driven on by the consciousness of their crimes, men who find repose in discord, disquiet in time of peace. These are the men who rouse rebellion after rebellion, war after war, followers now of Saturninus,[1] then of Sulpicius,[2] next of Marius and Damasippus,[3] and now of Lepidus. Moreover, Etruria is aroused, as well as all the other smouldering fires of war; the Spanish provinces are stirred to revolt, Mithridates, who is close beside those of our tributaries from whom we still receive support, is watching for an opportunity for war; in short, for the overthrow of our empire nothing is lacking save a competent leader.
Therefore, Fathers of the Senate, take heed, I beg and implore you, and do not allow the licence of crime, like a madness, to infect those who are as yet sound. For when the wicked are rewarded, it is not easy for anyone to be virtuous without price. Or are you waiting for Lepidus to come again with an army and enter our city with fire and sword? Verily, such an act is much nearer the condition in which he now finds himself than are peace and concord to civil arms. And these arms he took up in defiance of all human and divine law, not in order to avenge his own wrongs or the wrongs of those whom he pretends to represent, but to overthrow our laws and our liberty. For he is hounded and tormented in mind by ambition and terror because of his crimes, uneasy and at his wits' end, resorting now to this plan, now to that. He fears peace, hates war; he sees that he must sacrifice
- ↑ In 100 B.C. Lucius Saturninus, who was then tribune of the commons, set on foot a rebellion and was condemned to death by Marius.
- ↑ Sulpicius, tribune in 88 B.C., proposed and carried through the bill by which the command of the war against Mithridates was taken from Sulla and given to Marius. He was put to death at Laurentum.
- ↑ See Cat. li. 32.
