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6.
[14]
And your ancestors, O Romans, had to deal with an enemy who had also a republic,
a senate-house, a treasury, harmonious and united citizens, and with whom, if
fortune had so willed it, there might have been peace and treaties on settled
principles. But this enemy of yours is attacking your republic, but has none
himself; is eager to destroy the senate, that is to say, the council of the
whole world, but has no public council himself; he has exhausted your treasury,
and has none of his own. For how can a man be supported by the unanimity of his
citizens, who has no city at all? And what principles of peace can there be with
that man who is full of incredible cruelty, and destitute of faith?
[15]
The whole then of the contest, O Romans, which is now before the Roman people,
the conqueror of all nations, is with an assassin, a robber, a Spartacus.1 For as to his habitual boast of being like Catilina, he
is equal to him in wickedness, but inferior in energy. He, though he had no
army, rapidly levied one. This man has lost that very army which he had. As,
therefore, by my diligence, and the authority of the senate, and your own zeal
and valor, you crushed Catilina, so you will very soon hear that this infamous
piratical enterprise of Antonius has been put down by your own perfect and
unexampled harmony with the senate, and by the good fortune and valor of your
armies and generals.
[16]
I, for my part, as far
as I am able to labor, and to effect any thing by my care, and exertions, and
vigilance, and authority, and counsel, will omit nothing which I may think
serviceable to your liberty. Nor could I omit it without wickedness after all
your most ample and honorable kindness to me. However, on this day, encouraged
by the motion of a most gallant man, and one most firmly attached to you, Marcus
Servilius, whom you see before you, and his colleagues also, most distinguished
men, and most virtuous citizens; and partly, too, by my advice and my example,
we have, for the first time after a long interval, fired up again with a hope of
liberty.
1 Spartacus was the general of the gladiators and slaves in the Servile war.
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