Tiberius was against haste. He advised that the prisoners should be kept
in confinement till Catiline was taken or killed, and that the whole
affair should then be carefully investigated. Investigation was perhaps
what many senators were most anxious to avoid. When Tiberius had done,
Caesar rose. The speech which Sallust places in his mouth was not an
imaginary sketch of what Sallust supposed him likely to have said, but the
version generally received of what he actually did say, and the most
important passages of it are certainly authentic. For the first time we
see through the surface of Caesar's outward actions into his real mind.
During the three quarters of a century which had passed since the death of
the elder Gracchus one political murder had followed upon another. Every
conspicuous democrat had been killed by the aristocrats in some convenient
disturbance. No constitution could survive when the law was habitually set
aside by violence; and disdaining the suspicion with which he knew that
his words would be regarded, Caesar warned the Senate against another act
of precipitate anger which would be unlawful in itself, unworthy of their
dignity, and likely in the future to throw a doubt upon the guilt of the
men upon whose fate they were deliberating. He did not extenuate, he
rather emphasized, the criminality of Catiline and his confederates; but
for that reason and because for the present no reasonable person felt the
slightest uncertainty about it, he advised them to keep within the lines
which the law had marked out for them.
Pages:
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207