1Who was at one time more agreeable to the most distinguished men, who more closely bound to the basest? 1who was once a citizen of the better party, who a fouler enemy to this state? 1who more defiled in pleasures, who more enduring in toils? 1who more greedy in plunder, who more lavish in largesse? 1These, gentlemen, were truly remarkable qualities in that man: to embrace many in friendship, to keep them by compliance, to share whatever he had with everyone, to serve the needs of all his friends with money, influence, bodily exertion, even with crime and audacity if need be; to turn his nature and steer it to suit the moment, twisting and bending it this way and that; to live gravely with the serious, pleasantly with the easy-going, soberly with the old, affably with the young, recklessly with criminals, dissolutely with the profligate.
14With this varied and many-sided nature, not only had he gathered wicked and reckless men from every land, but he also held many brave and good men by a kind of semblance of feigned virtue. 14Nor would so wicked an onslaught aimed at destroying this empire ever have sprung from him, had not the monstrous enormity of so many vices rested on certain roots of affability and endurance. 14Therefore, gentlemen, let that argument be rejected, and let not the charge of intimacy with Catiline stick. 14For it is shared with many, and with some good men. 14Me myself, I say, me he once almost deceived, when he seemed to me a good citizen, eager for the friendship of all the best men, and a firm and faithful friend; 14whose crimes I caught with my eyes before I had even surmised them, with my hands before I suspected them.
14If Caelius too was among the great throngs of his friends, he has more reason to be sorry that he was mistaken, as I too sometimes regret my mistake about the same man, than to dread a charge of friendship with him.