[12]
But when I have set before myself Lentulus reigning, as he himself
confesses that he had hoped was his destiny, and this Gabinius arrayed in the purple and
Catiline arrived with his army, then I shudder at the lamentation of matrons, and the flight
of virgins and of boys and the insults of the vestal virgins; and because these things appear
to me exceedingly miserable and pitiable, therefore I show myself severe and rigorous to
those who have wished to bring about this state of things. I ask, forsooth, if any father of
a family, supposing his children had been slain by a slave, his wife murdered, his house
burnt, were not to inflict on his slaves the severest possible punishment would he appear
clement and merciful or most inhuman and cruel? To me he would seem unnatural and
hard-hearted who did not soothe his own pain and anguish by the pain and torture of the
criminal. And so we, in the case of these men who desired to murder us, and our
wives, and our children,—who endeavoured to destroy the houses of every individual
among us, and also the republic, the home of all,—who designed to place the nation
of the Allobroges on the relics of this city, and on the ashes of the empire destroyed by
fire;—if we are very rigorous, we shall be considered merciful; if we choose to be
lax, we must endure the character of the greatest cruelty, to the damage of our country and
our fellow-citizens.
