Great thanks are due to the immortal gods, and
 to this very Jupiter Stator, in whose temple we are, the most ancient protector of thus city,
 that we have already so often escaped so foul, so horrible, and so deadly an enemy to the
 republic. But the safety of the commonwealth must not be too often allowed to be risked on one
 man. As long as you, O Catiline, plotted against me while I was the consul elect, I defended
 myself not with a public guard, but by my own private diligence. When, in the next consular
 comitia , you wished to slay me when I was actually consul,
 and your competitors also, in the Campus Martius , I
 checked your nefarious attempt by the assistance and resources of my own friends, without
 exciting any disturbance publicly. In short, as often as you attacked me, I by myself opposed
 you, and that, too, though I saw that my ruin was connected with great disaster to the
 republic. But now you are openly attacking the entire
 republic. 
 You are summoning to destruction and devastation the temples of the immortal gods, the houses
 of the city, the lives of all the citizens; in short, all Italy . Wherefore, since I do not yet venture to do that which is the best thing,
 and which belongs to my office and to the discipline of our ancestors, I will do that which is
 more merciful if we regard its rigour, and more expedient for the state. For if I order you to
 be put to death, the rest of the conspirators will still remain in the republic; if as I have
 long been exhorting you, you depart, your companions, those worthless dregs of the republic,
 will be drawn off from the city too. What is the matter,
 Catiline? Do you hesitate to do that which I order you which you were already doing of your own
 accord? The consul orders an enemy to depart from the city. Do you ask me, Are you to go into
 banishment? I do not order it; but, if you consult me, I advise it. 
 For what is there, O Catiline, that can now afford you any pleasure in this city? for there
 is no one in it, except that band of profligate conspirators of yours, who does not fear
 you,—no one who does not hate you. What brand of domestic baseness is not stamped upon your
 life? What disgraceful circumstance is wanting to your infamy in your private affairs? From
 what licentiousness have your eyes, from what atrocity have your hands, from what iniquity has
 your whole body ever abstained? Is there one youth, when you have once entangled him in the
 temptations of your corruption, to whom you have not held out a sword for audacious crime, or a
 torch for licentious wickedness? What? when lately by the death of your former wife you had made your house empty and ready
 for a new bridal, did you not even add another incredible wickedness to this wickedness? But I
 pass that over, and willingly allow it to be buried in silence, that so horrible a crime may
 not be seen to have existed in this city, and not to have been chastised. I pass over the ruin
 of your fortune, which you know is hanging over you against the ides of the very next month; I
 come to those things which relate not to the infamy of your private vices, not to your domestic
 difficulties and baseness, but to the welfare of the republic and to the lives and safety of us
 all. 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.