Book 4
69
And in this place I appeal to you, O Quintus Catulus; The Capitol had been burnt in the civil war between Marius and Sulla, and it was now being restored under the superintendence of Quintus Catulus, to whom that office had been entrusted by the senate.for I am speaking of your most honourable and most splendid monument. You ought to take upon yourself not only the severity of a judge with respect to this crime, but something like the vehemence of an enemy and an accuser. For, through the kindness of the senate and people of Rome, your honour is connected with that temple. Your name is consecrated at the same time as that temple in the everlasting recollection of men. It is by you that this case is to be encountered; by you, that this labour is to be undergone, in order that the Capitol, as it has been restored more magnificently, may also be adorned more splendidly than it was originally; that then that fire may seem to have been sent from heaven, not to destroy the temple of the great and good Jupiter, but to demand one for him more noble and more magnificent.
