quocunque in populo videas." It is hard
to find a good man, but it is easy enough to put your
hand anywhere on a Catiline.

[182] Val Maximus, lib. v., viii., 5; lib. ix., 1, 9;
lib. ix., xi., 3.

[183] Florus, lib. iv.

[184] Mommsen's History of Rome, book v., chap v.

[185] I feel myself constrained here to allude to the
treatment given to Catiline by Dean Merivale in his
little work on the two Roman Triumvirates. The Dean's
sympathies are very near akin to those of Mr. Beesly,
but he values too highly his own historical judgment to
allow it to run on all fours with Mr. Beesly's
sympathies. "The real designs," he says, "of the
infamous Catiline and his associates must indeed always
remain shrouded in mystery. * * * Nevertheless, it is
impossible to deny, and on the whole it would be
unreasonable to doubt, that such a conspiracy there
really was, and that the very existence of the
commonwealth was for a moment seriously imperilled." It
would certainly be unreasonable to doubt it. But the
Dean, though he calls Catiline infamous, and
acknowledges the conspiracy, nevertheless give us ample
proof of his sympathy with the conspirators, or rather
of his strong feeling against Cicero. Speaking of
Catiline at a certain moment, he says that he "was not
yet hunted down." He speaks of the "upstart Cicero," and
plainly shows us that his heart is with the side which
had been Caesar's. Whether conspiracy or no conspiracy,
whether with or without wholesale murder and rapine, a
single master with a strong hand was the one remedy
needed for Rome! The reader must understand that
Cicero's one object in public life was to resist that
lesson.

[186] Asconius, "In toga candida," reports that
Fenestella, a writer of the time of Augustus, had
declared that Cicero had defended Catiline; but Asconius
gives his reasons for disbelieving the story.

[187] Cicero, however, declares that he has made a
difference between traitors to their country and other
criminals. Pro P. Sulla, ca. iii.: "Verum etiam quaedam
contagio sceleris, si defendas eum, quem obstrictum esse
patriae parricidio suspicere." Further on in the same
oration, ca. vi., he explains that he had refused to
defend Autronius because he had known Autronius to be a
conspirator against his country