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Cicero, In Catilinam I · In Catilinam I

“Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?” In November 63 BC the consul Cicero (106–43 BC) spoke these words in the Senate to Catiline, whom he accused of plotting against the state. That night Catiline left Rome.

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About the speech

Cicero gave four speeches against Catiline in November and December of 63 BC. This first one, given in the Senate, is the most famous. Harvard’s 1880 catalogue named Cicero’s Orations against Catiline in its Latin exam, and earlier catalogues asked for Cicero’s Select Orations (the old Harvard list).

The numbers are the speech’s sections, §1 to §33. More about the speeches: Grokipedia, Catilinarian orations.

Text: M. Tulli Ciceronis in L. Catilinam Oratio Prima, from A. C. Clark, M. Tulli Ciceronis Orationes, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905; Perseus used the 1908 printing), public domain. Digital text: Perseus Digital Library. The editor’s notes on manuscript readings are left out. Sections are divided here at the ends of sentences.

English: C. D. Yonge, The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, vol. 2 (London: Bohn, 1856), public domain. It is divided by section, like the Latin.

Perseus shares these digital texts under CC BY-SA 4.0; this page’s data files are shared under the same license. The texts were divided into daily portions here. Dictionary links go to the Perseus Digital Library (Tufts University) and Logeion (University of Chicago).