Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
If any words are unmistakably Ciceronian, these are. Every schoolboy knew them. Generations of Latin prose composers have trotted them out with unassailable confidence. It seems almost indelicate to suggest that they are not Ciceronian at all; but it would solve the problem presented by Sallust Cat. 20.9 if this were the case. Sallust's placing of the hallowed words in the mouth of Catiline has always been something of a scandal, to be laughed off (if you can find a joke in it), or played down (Syme, Sallust, p.106, ‘If that is malice, it is not very noxious’’),