sar, with a short, fierce, disdainful laugh: "what
danger do you apprehend?"

"That you should best know," said Flaminius; "you are far more intimate
with Catiline than I. But I advise you to be cautious. The leading men
entertain strong suspicions."

Caesar drew up his figure from its ordinary state of graceful relaxation
into an attitude of commanding dignity, and replied in a voice of
which the deep and impassioned melody formed a strange contrast to
the humorous and affected tone of his ordinary conversation. "Let them
suspect. They suspect because they know what they have deserved. What
have they done for Rome?--What for mankind? Ask the citizens--ask the
provinces. Have they had any other object than to perpetuate their
own exclusive power, and to keep us under the yoke of an oligarchical
tyranny, which unites in itself the worst evils of every other system,
and combines more than Athenian turbulence with more than Persian
despotism?"

"Good Gods! Caesar. It is not safe for you to speak, or for us to listen
to, such things, at such a crisis."

"Judge for yourselves what you will hear. I will judge for myself what
I will speak. I was not twenty years old when I defied Lucius Sylla,
surrounded by the spears of legionaries and the daggers of assassins.
Do you suppose that I stand in awe of his paltry successors, who have
inherited a power which they never could have acquired; who would
imitate his proscriptions, though they have never equalled his
conquests?"

"Pompey is almost as little to be trifled with as Sylla. I heard a
consular senator say that, in consequence of the present alarming state
of affairs, he would probably be recalled from the command assigned to
him by the Manilian law."

"Let him come,--the pupil of Sylla's butcheries,--the gleaner of
Lucullus's trophies,--the thief-taker of the Senate."

"For Heaven's sake, Caius!--if you knew what the Consul said"--

"Something about himself, no doubt. Pity that such talents should be
coupled with such cowardice and coxcombry. He is the finest speaker
living,--infinitely superior to what Hortensius was, in his best
days;--a charming companion, except when he tells over for the twentieth
time all the jokes that he made at Verres's trial. But he is the
despicable tool of a despicable party."

"Your language, Caius, convinces me that the reports which have been
circulated are not without foundation. I will venture to prophesy that
within a few months