C. Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinae 5.7–9

Sallust explains that Catiline's fierce ambition was daily inflamed by poverty and guilt, both of which he had worsened by his own vices; the corrupted morals of the state — torn apart by the opposing evils of luxury and greed — only spurred him further. This leads Sallust to announce that he will digress to describe the ancestral character of Rome in peace and war, and how the state gradually declined from the finest to the most depraved.

 

Tier 1

Animus Catilinae ferox agitabatur magis et magis cotidie quia Catilina est sine re familiare et quia Catilina se malum fecisse scivit. Utraque mala quae Catilina maiora fecit iis artibus, quas supra memoravi.

Corrupti mores civitatis quoque Catilinam incitabant. Mores quos pessima et mala opposita, luxuria et nimis cupere, vexabant.

Occasio de moribus civitatis, et res ipsa, me repetere maiores supra cogunt. Cogunt me quoque explicare paucis vocabulis mores maiorum in pace et in bello.

Cogunt me quoque explicare quo modo rem publicam habuerint et quam magnam rem publicam reliquerint, ut, minus et minus, res publica inmutata est ex pulcherrima et optima ad pessimam et foedissimam.

Written by Robert Amstutz