O Quintus Catulus! (Shall I appeal rather to the father, or to the son? The memory of the son is fresher, and more closely connected with my exploits.) How greatly were you mistaken when you thought that I should find the greatest possible reward—a reward, too, becoming every day greater in this republic when you said that it was impossible for there to be at the same time in this city two consuls hostile to the republic. Two have been found who gave over the senate bound hand and foot to a frantic tribune; who, by edicts and positive commands, prohibited the conscript fathers from entreating the people and coming to it as suppliants on my behalf; who looked on while my house was being sacked and plundered; who ordered the damaged relics of my property to be carried off to their own houses. [114] I come now to the father. You, O Quintus Catulus, chose the house of Marcus Fulvius, though he was the father-in-law of your own brother, to be the monument of your victories, in order that every recollection of that man who had embraced designs destructive of the republic should be entirely removed from the eyes and eradicated from the minds of men if, when you were building that portico, any one had said to you that the time would come when that tribune of the people, who had despised the authority of the senate and the opinion of all virtuous men, should injure and overthrow your monument, while the consuls were not looking on only, but even assisting in the work, and should join it to the house of that citizen who as consul had defended the republic in obedience to the authority of the senate; would you not have answered that that could not possibly happen, unless the republic itself was previously overthrown? [cap.44] [115]