[205] The words in which this honor was conferred he himself repeats: "Quod urbem incendiis, cæde cives, Italiam bello liberassem"—"because I had rescued the city from fire, the citizens from slaughter, and Italy from war."
[206] It is necessary in all oratory to read something between the lines. It is allowed to the speaker to produce effect by diminishing and exaggerating. I think we should detract something from the praises bestowed on Catiline's military virtues. The bigger Catiline could be made to appear, the greater would be the honor of having driven him out of the city.
[207] In Catilinam, iii., xi.
[208] In Catilinam, ibid., xii.: "Ne mihi noceant vestrum est providere."
[209] "Prince of the Senate" was an honorary title, conferred on some man of mark as a dignity—at this period on some ex-Consul; it conferred no power. Cicero, the Consul who had convened the Senate, called on the speakers as he thought fit.
[210] Cæsar, according to Sallust, had referred to the Lex Porcia. Cicero alludes, and makes Cæsar allude, to the Lex Sempronia. The Porcian law, as we are told by Livy, was passed b.c. 299, and forbade that a Roman should be scourged or put to death. The Lex Sempronia was introduced by C. Gracchus, and enacted that the life of a citizen should not be taken without the voice of the citizens.
[211] Velleius Paterculus, xxxvi.: "Consulatui Ciceronis non mediocre adjecit decus natus eo anno Divus Augustus."
[212] In Pisonem, iii.: "Sine ulla dubitatione juravi rempublicam atque hanc urbem mea unius opera esse salvam."
[213] Dio Cassius tells the same story, lib. xxxvii., ca. 38, but he adds that Cicero was more hated than ever because of the oath he took: καὶ ὅ μέν καὶ ἐκ τούτου πολὺ μᾶλλον ἐμισήθη.
[214] It is the only letter given in the collection as having been addressed direct to Pompey. In two letters written some years later to Atticus, b.c. 49, lib. viii., 11, and lib. viii., 12, he sends copies of a correspondence between himself and Pompey and two of the Pompeian generals.