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Cicero denounces Catiline to his face

63 BCE, Rome (the Senate). His own words, in a speech to the Senate.

Where and when

63 BCERome (the Senate)

2,088 years ago

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Cicero

, Rome (the Senate)His own words, in a speech to the Senate

In plain words, ours

What times we live in! The Senate knows all this, the consul sees it, and still this man is alive. He even comes into the Senate.

Shame on the age and on its principles! The senate is aware of these things; the consul sees them; and yet this man lives. Lives! aye, he comes even into the senate.

Cicero, Against Catiline 1.2Translated by C. D. Yonge (1856)Read the full passage (Cicero, Against Catiline 1.2, opens scaife.perseus.org)

What was going on, our summary

The Senate in Rome, 63 BCE. The consul Cicero has exposed Catiline's plan to seize power by force, and Catiline himself has come to the meeting. With guards posted across the city, Cicero speaks straight to him.

Checked claim by claim against: Cicero exposes Catiline's plot against the Republic, the passage around the quote.

Why it matters

About the event it belongs to: Cicero exposes Catiline's plot against the Republic

Scholars disagree about its weight: one called it among the best known and least significant episodes in Roman history, while others stress that it jolted the Republic into action.

Based on Wikipedia: Catilinarian conspiracy

For example, Louis E. Lord in the introduction to the 1937 Loeb Classical Library translation of Cicero's Catilinarian orations calls it "one of the best known and least significant episodes in Roman history".

Scholars have also criticised over-estimation of the importance of Catiline's insurrection, but others stress that the affair was not meaningless and that it jolted the republic into action.

Wikipedia, Catilinarian conspiracy (opens en.wikipedia.org), as of 2026-07-19. Text CC BY-SA 4.0. Our line is checked against these sentences only.

Related moments

In time order, with this one in its place. Each says why it is here.

  1. 63 BCESame year Cicero exposes Catiline's plot against the Republic The event behind itAlso in Rome
  2. 63 BCEThis momentCicero denounces Catiline to his face
  3. 63 BCESame year Cato, Caesar and the note, in Plutarch Also in Rome
  4. 63 BCESame year Cicero tells the people Catiline is gone More from Cicero
  5. 63 BCESame year Cicero turns on Catiline in the Senate Same passageMore from Cicero
  6. 63 BCESame year Cicero advises Catiline to leave Rome More from Cicero
  7. c. 60 BCEabout 3 years later Caesar, Pompey and Crassus join forces Also in Rome

Just before and after

The text around the quote, word for word from the same translation.

Show the passageHide the passage

When is there to be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it does now? Do not the nightly guards placed on the Palatine Hill—do not the watches posted throughout the city—does not the alarm of the people, and the union of all good men—does not the precaution taken of assembling the senate in this most defensible place—do not the looks and countenances of this venerable body here present, have any effect upon you? Do you not feel that your plans are detected? Do you not see that your conspiracy is already arrested and rendered powerless by the knowledge which every one here possesses of it? What is there that you did last night, what the night before— where is it that you were—who was there that you summoned to meet you—what design was there which was adopted by you, with which you think that any one of us is unacquainted?

The quote: Shame on the age and on its principles! The senate is aware of these things; the consul sees them; and yet this man lives. Lives! aye, he comes even into the senate.

He takes a part in the public deliberations; he is watching and marking down and checking off for slaughter every individual among us. And we, gallant men that we are, think that we are doing our duty to the republic if we keep out of the way of his frenzied attacks. You ought, O Catiline, long ago to have been led to execution by command of the consul. That destruction which you have been long plotting against us ought to have already fallen on your own head. What?

Cicero, Against Catiline 1.1–3Translated by C. D. Yonge (1856)Read the full passage (opens scaife.perseus.org)

When, and whose words

Date
63 BCE. Speech one against Catiline, given during Cicero's consulship in 63 BCE; he published the speeches himself a few years later.
Whose words
His own words, in a speech to the Senate.
How this post was checked
  • The plain-words line was read against the quote alone by a second, independent pass, which found it adds no claim the quote does not make (2026-10-03).
  • Each claim in the summary was checked by an independent pass against only the material it cites.
  • The quote itself is checked by the build: word for word, once, at the cited section of the stored translation.

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