ho
have no duty set, hear, and mark this: always to kill is to do something!
the more, and nobler, so much the better deed! Remembering this, that sons
have ready access to their sires, who for the most part are their
bitterest foes! and that to spare none we are sworn--how, and how deeply,
it needs not to remind you. More words are bootless, since to all here it
must be evident that these things, planned thus far with deep and prudent
council, once executed with that dauntless daring, which alone stands for
armor, and for weapons, and, by the Gods! for bulwarks of defence, must
win us liberty and glory, more over wealth, and luxury, and power, in
which names is embraced the sum of all felicity. Therefore, now, I exhort
you not; for if the woes which you would shun, the prizes which you shall
attain, exhort you not, all words of man, all portents of the Gods, are
dumb, and voiceless, and in vain! Mark the day only, and remember, that if
not ye, at least your sires were Romans and were men!"

"Bravely, my Sergius, hast thou spoken, and well done!" cried at once
several voices of the more prominent partisans.

"By the Gods! what a leader!" whispered Longinus Cassius to his neighbor.

"Fabius in council," cried Cethegus, "Marcellus in the field!"

"Moreover, fellow-soldiers," exclaimed Lentulus, "hear this: although he
join not with us now, through policy, Antonius, the Consul, is in heart
ours, and waits but for the first success to declare himself for the cause
in arms. Crassus, the rich--Caesar, the people's idol--have heard our
counsels, and approve them. The first blow struck, their influence, their
names, their riches, and their popularity, strike with us--trustier
friends, by Pollux! and more potent, than fifty thousand swordsmen!"

A louder and more general burst of acclamation and applause than that
which had succeeded Cataline's address, burst from the lips of all, as
those great names dropped from the tongue of Lentulus; and one voice cried
aloud--it was the voice of Curius, intoxicated as it were with present
triumph--

"By all the Gods! Rome is our own! our own, even now, to portion out among
our friends, our mistresses, our slaves!"

"Not Rome--but Rome's inheritance, the world!" exclaimed another. "If we
win, all the universe is ours--and see how small the stake; when, if we
fail"--

"By Hades, we'll not fail!" Cataline interrupted him, in his deep
penetrating tones. "We cannot, and we will not! and