Cicero

But Cato, who was tribune at this time, was a great help to Cicero and to the whole state, and opposed the measures of the other tribunes with an authority equal to theirs and a greater good repute. For he easily put a stop to their other projects, and so highly extolled the arbitrary power of Cicero in a speech to the people, that they voted him the greatest honours ever conferred and called him the father of his country. For he was the first, as it seems, to receive this title,[*](Cicero himself nowhere says this, nor does he mention Cato in connection with the title. In his oration in Pisonem, 3, 6, he says that Quintus Catulus gave him the title in the Senate.) after Cato had given it to him before the people.

So at this time Cicero had the greatest power in the state, but he made himself generally odious, not by any base action, but by continually praising and magnifying himself, which made him hateful to many. For there could be no session either of senate or assembly or court of justice in which one was not obliged to hear Catiline and Lentulus endlessly talked about.

Nay, he even went so far as to fill his books and writings with these praises of himself; and he made his oratory, which was naturally very pleasant and had the greatest charm, irksome and tedious to his hearers, since this unpleasant practice clung to him like a fatality. But nevertheless, although he cherished so strong an ambition, he was free from envying others, since he was most ungrudging in his encomiums upon his predecessors and contemporaries, as may be gathered from his writings.

There are also many sayings of his on record which prove this; for instance, he said of Aristotle that he was a river of liquid gold,[*](Acad. Prior. ii. 38, 119.) and of the dialogues of Plato that Jupiter, were it his nature to use human speech, would thus discourse,[*](Brutus, 31, 121 (si Graece loquatur).) Theophrastus, too, he used to call his own special delight. And when he was asked which of the speeches of Demosthenes he thought the best, he replied, the longest.