A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious.
But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at
the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he
carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among
those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through
all the galleys, heard in the very hall of government itself.
For the traitor appears not a traitor—he speaks in the accents
familiar to his victims, and wears their face and their garment,
and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts
of all men. He rots the soul of a nation—he works secretly and
unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city—he
infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer
is less to be feared…….Cicero, 42 B.C.