Читать книгу Yale Classics (Vol. 2) - Луций Анней Сенека - Страница 446

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When Catiline saw those whose names we have already given assembled together, though he had often conferred with them singly, yet, judging it proper to address and encourage them in a body, he withdrew with them into a private part of the house, where none could hear him but the conspirators, and there spoke to them in the following manner:—

“If your bravery and fidelity were not well known to me, the present opportunity had occurred to no purpose; vain would all our great hopes have been: the power of seizing the government had dropped into our hands in vain; nor should I, depending on dastardly and irresolute associates, have hazarded certainties for uncertainties. But as I have on many important occasions proved your bravery and attachment to me, I have dared to engage in an enterprise of the highest consequence and the greatest glory. It is an additional encouragement to me, when I consider the harmony of our desires and aversions, which is the firmest bond of friendship.

“Now the nature of my undertaking you have already heard severally; and my ardour to put it in execution increases daily, when I consider what must be our future lot, unless we recover our liberty. For since the government came under the power and management of a few, kings and princes have been tributary to them, and nations have paid them taxes; while all the rest of us citizens, however worthy or brave, noble or plebeian, have remained as a sorry mob, without interest or authority, slaves to those to whom we should be a terror, were the state but in its due vigour. All sway, preferment, interest, and riches are now in their hands, or those of their favourites; to us they have left nothing but dangers, repulses from public dignities, the terror of tribunals, and the buffetings of poverty. Which indignities how long will ye tamely submit to, ye bravest of men? Is it not better to die in a brave attempt than to drag a wretched and infamous life, and to lose it at last shamefully, after having been the sport of other men’s insolence?