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M. T. CICERONIS

ORATIONES

QUAEDAM SELECTAE,

NOTIS ILLUSTRATAE.

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EDITIO EXONIENSIS TERTIA,

EMENDATIOR.

EXONIAE, NEO-HANT.

IMPENSIS J. J. WILLIAMS.

MDCCCXX.

KD 53415

1873, March 1.
Gratis.

District of New-Hampshire, to wit:

BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the ninth day of May, in the forty-fourth year of the Independence of the United States of America, GEORGE LAMSON, of the said District, hath deposited in this office, the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as Proprietor, in the words following, to wit, "M. T. Ciceronis Orationes Quaedam Selectae, Notis Illustratae. Editio Exoniensis Tertia, Emendatior." In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled," An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such during the times there in mentioned."

PEYTON RANDOLPH FREEMAN,
Clerk of the District of New-Hampshire.

A true copy of record-Attest,
PEYTON R. FREEMAN,

Clerk of the District Court for New-Hampshire Districi.

ORATIO I. IN L. CATILINAM.

INTRODUCTION.

IN the six hundred and eighty seventh year of Rome, Lucius Sergius Cataline, a man of patrician rank and great abilities, but of a wicked and ambitious disposition, formed a conspiracy to elevate himself and his accomplices to power and wealth upon the ruins of his country. From his earliest youth, he was fond of civil wars, of rapine, and of massacres. There was no crime however attrocious, which he was not willing to commit; there was no vice however infamous, of which he was not inclined to be guilty. He debauched a young lady of illustrious family, afterwards seduced a Vestal, and is said to have violated the chastity of his own daughter. To gratify Sylla whose partisan he was, he assassinated a brother. He even murdered a son, because Aurelia Orestilla, whom he wished to marry, disliked to have a full grown son in law. Indeed he so often committed murder and other heinous crimes, that he did not seem to think the commission of them criminal. But at length, not contented with the commission of many private vices, he conceived the design of a conspiracy, which had it been executed would have been unparalleled in the annals of history. After his return from Africa, the province assigned to him upon the expiration of his Praetorship, he sued for the Consulship; but, in consequence of an accusation of extortion and mal-administration, which the African cities preferred against him in Rome, he was not permitted to assert and maintain his pretensions to that office. It was during the pendency of this trial that, it is supposed, he first thought of destroying the laws and usurping the power of the republic. Enraged by this check to his ambition, he resolved to acquire by force that authority, which he could not obtain by election. He entered into a combination with Autronius, Cneius Piso, and others, to put the Consuls to death and seize the consulship. Their design, at the first attempt to execute it, was frustrated by the absence of Crassus, and by Julius Caesar's not giving the signal agreed upon, and they therefore thought it prudent to defer its execution to a future period. At the time appointed they had enlarged their plan, and determined not only to kill the consuls, but also to murder the Senate. But by too great precipitancy the conspirators again defeated their own designs. Cataline, however, did not remit his exertions; he Seems to have been calculated to make the most hazardous attempts with the greatest discouragements. He was now more de

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