mber, the day after that on which the Consul was to
have been murdered in his own house, he called a special meeting of the
Senate in the temple of Jupiter Stator. The Senate in Cicero's time was
convened according to expedience, or perhaps as to the dignity of the
occasion, in various temples. Of these none had a higher reputation than
that of the special Jupiter who is held to have befriended Romulus in
his fight with the Sabines. Here was launched that thunderbolt of
eloquence which all English school-boys have known for its "Quousque
tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra." Whether it be from the awe
which has come down to me from my earliest years, mixed perhaps with
something of dread for the great pedagogue who first made the words to
sound grandly in my ears, or whether true critical judgment has since
approved to me the real weight of the words, they certainly do contain
for my intelligence an expression of almost divine indignation. Then
there follows a string of questions, which to translate would be vain,
which to quote, for those who read the language, is surely unnecessary.
It is said to have been a fault with Cicero that in his speeches he runs
too much into that vein of wrathful interrogation which undoubtedly
palls upon us in English oratory when frequent resort is made to it. It
seems to be too easy, and to contain too little of argument. It was
this, probably, of which his contemporaries complained when they
declared him to be florid, redundant, and Asiatic in his style.[199]
This questioning runs through nearly the whole speech, but the reader
cannot fail to acknowledge its efficacy in reference to the matter in
hand. Catiline was sitting there himself in the Senate, and the
questions were for the most part addressed to him. We can see him now, a
man of large frame, with bold, glaring eyes, looking in his wrath as
though he were hardly able to keep his hands from the Consul's throat,
even there in the Senate. Though he knew that this attack was to be made
on him, he had stalked into the temple and seated himself in a place of
honor, among the benches intended for those who had been Consuls. When
there, no one spoke to him, no one saluted him. The consular Senators
shrunk away, leaving their places of privilege. Even his
brother-conspirators, of whom many were present, did not dare to
recognize him. Lentulus was no doubt there, and Cethegus, and two of the
Sullan family, and Cassius Longinus, and Au