Pro L. Murena

But in truth, let us allow that these advantages are all equal,—let exertions displayed in the forum be allowed to be equal to military achievements,—let the votes of the quiet citizens be granted to be of equal weight with those of the I soldiers,—let it be of equal assistance to a man to have I exhibited the most magnificent games, and never to have exhibited any at all; what then? Do you think that in the praetorship itself there was no difference between your lot and that of my client Murena? His department was that which we and all your friends desired for you; that namely, of deciding the law; a business in which the importance of the business transacted procures great credit for a man, and the administration of justice earns him popularity; for which department a wise praetor, such as Murena was, avoids giving offence by impartiality in his decisions, and conciliates good-will by his good temper in hearing the cases brought before him. It is a very creditable employment and very well adapted to gain a man the consulship, being one in which the praise of justice, integrity and affability is crowned at the last by the pleasure of the games which he exhibits.

What department was it that your lot gave you? A disagreeable and odious one. That of inquiry into peculation, pregnant on the one side with the tears and mourning apparel of the accused, full on the other side of imprisonment and informers. In that department of justice judges are forced to act against their will, are retained by force contrary to their inclination. The clerk is hated, the whole body is unpopular. The gratifications given by Sulla are found fault with. Many brave men,—indeed, a considerable portion of the city is offended; damages are assigned with severity. The man who is pleased with the decision soon forgets it; he who loses his cause is sure to remember it. Lastly, you would not go to your province. I cannot find fault with that resolution in you, which, both as praetor and consul, I have adopted in my own case. But still Lucius Murena's conduct in his province procured him the affection of many influential men, and a great accession of reputation. On his road he held a levy of troops in Umbria. The republic enabled him to display his liberality, which he did so effectually as to engage in his interest many tribes which are connected with the municipalities of that district. And in Gaul itself, he contrived by his equity and diligence to enable many of our citizens to recover debts which they had entirely despaired of. In the meantime you were living at Rome, ready to help your friends. I confess that—but still recollect this, that the inclinations of some friends are often cooled towards those men by whom they see that provinces are despised.

And since I have proved, O judges, that in this con-test for the consulship Murena had the same claims of worth that Sulpicius had, accompanied with a very different fortune as respects the business of their respective provinces, I will say more plainly in what particular my friend Servius was inferior; and I will say those things while you are now hearing me,—now that the time of the elections is over—which I have often said to him by himself before the affair was settled. I often told you, O Servius, that you did not know how to stand for the consulship; and, in respect to those very matters which I saw you conducting and advocating in a brave and magnanimous spirit, I often said to you that you appeared to me to be a brave senator rather than a wise candidate. For, in the first place, the terrors and threats of accusations which you were in the habit of employing every day, are rather the part of a fearless man; but they have an unfavourable effect on the opinion of the people as regards a man's hopes of getting anything from them, and they even disarm the zeal of his friends. Somehow or other, this is always the case; and it has been noticed, not in one or two instances only, but in many; so that the moment a candidate is seen to turn his attention to provocations, he is supposed to have given up all hopes of his election.

What, then, am I saying? Do I mean that a man is not to prosecute another for any injury which he may have received? Certainly I mean nothing of the sort. But the times for prosecuting and for standing for the consulship are different. I consider that a candidate for any office, especially for the consulship, ought to come down into the forum and

“Do you see how gloomy that man looks? how dejected? He is out of spirits; he thinks he has no chance; he has laid down his arms.” Then a report gets abroad—“Do you know that he is thinking of a prosecution? He is seeking for evidence against his competitors; he is hunting for witnesses. I shall vote for some one else, as he knows that he has no chance.” The most intimate friends of such candidates as that are dispirited and disarmed, they abandon all anxiety in the matter,—they give up a business which is so manifestly hopeless, or else they reserve all their labour and influence to countenance their friend in the trial and prosecution which he is meditating. And, besides all this, the candidate himself cannot devote his whole thoughts, and care, and attention, and diligence to his own election; for he has also in his mind the thoughts of his prosecution—a matter of no small importance, but in truth of the very greatest. For it is a very serious business to be preparing measures by which to deprive a man, especially one who is not powerless or without resources—of his rights as a citizen; one who is defended both by himself and by his friend,—yes, and perhaps also by strangers. For we all of us naturally hasten to save any one from danger; and, if we are not notoriously enemies to them, we tender, even to utter strangers, when menaced by danger affecting their station as citizens, the services and zeal which are strictly speaking due only to the causes of our friends.

On which account I, who know by experience the troubles attending on standing for office, on defending and accusing prisoners, consider that the truth in respect of each business stands thus,—that in standing for an office, eagerness is the chief thing; in defending a man, a regard for one's duty is the principal thing shown; in accusing a man, the labour is greatest. And therefore I say decidedly that it is quite impossible for the same man to do justice properly to the part of an accuser and a candidate for the consulship. Few can play either part well; no one can do justice to both. Did you, when you turned aside out of the course prescribed for you as a candidate, and when you had transferred your attention to the task of prosecuting, think that you could fulfil all the requirements of both? You were greatly mistaken if you did; for what day was there after you once entered on that prosecution, that you did not devote the whole of it to that occupation? You demanded a law about bribery, though there was no deficiency of laws on that matter, for there was the Calpurnian law, framed with the greatest severity. Your inclinations and your wish procured compliance with your demand; but the whole of that law might perhaps have armed your accusation, if you had had a guilty defendant to prosecute; but it has been of great injury to you as a candidate.

A more severe punishment for the common people was demanded by your voice. The minds of the lower orders were agitated. The punishment of an exile was demanded in the case of any one of our order being convicted. The senate granted it to your request; but still it was with no good will that they established a more severe condition for our common fortunes at your instigation. Punishment was imposed on any one who made the excuse of illness. The inclinations of many men were alienated by this step, as by it they were forced either to labour to the prejudice of their health, or else through the distress of illness they were compelled to abandon the other enjoyments of life. What then, are we to say of this? Who passed this law? He, who, in so doing, acted in obedience to the senate, and to your wish. He, in short, passed it to whom it was not of the slightest personal advantage. Do you think that those proposals which, with my most willing consent, the senate rejected in a very full house, were but a slight hindrance to you? You demanded the confusion of the votes of all the centuries, the extension of the Manilian law, [*](This was not the Manilian law, in support of which Cicero spoke to confer the command in Asia on Pompeius; but a law enacting that the votes should be counted without any regard to the centuries in which they were given; but this law was repealed soon after its enactment. ) the equalization or all interest and dignity, and

All these measures were strengthening your hands as a prosecutor, but weakening your chance as a candidate. And by them all a violent blow was struck at your hopes of success, as I warned you; and many very severe things were said about it by that most able and most eloquent man, Hortensius, owing to which my task of speaking now is the more difficult; as, after both he had spoken before me, and also Marcus Crassus, a man of the greatest dignity, and industry, and skill as an orator, I, coming in at the end, was not to plead some part of the cause, but to say with respect to the whole matter whatever I thought advisable. Therefore I am forced to recur to the same ideas, and to a great extent, O judges, I have to contend with a feeling of satiety on your part. But still, O Servius, do you not see that you completely lay the axe to the root of your chance as a candidate, when you give the Roman people cause for apprehension that Catiline might be made consul through your neglect and, I may almost say, abandonment of your canvass, while you were intent on your prosecution?

In truth, men saw that you were hunting about for evidence; that you yourself looked gloomy, your friends out of spirits; they noticed your visits, your inquiries after proofs, your privy meetings with your witnesses, your conferences with your junior counsel; all which matters are certainly apt to make the countenance of a candidate look darker. Meantime they saw Catiline cheerful and joyous, accompanied by a band of youths, with a bodyguard of informers and assassins, elated by the hopes which he placed in the soldiers, and, as he himself said, by the promises of my colleagues; surrounded, too, with a numerous body of colonists from Arretium and Faesulae—a crowd made conspicuous by the presence of men of a very different sort in it, men who had been ruined by the disasters in the time of Sulla. His own countenance was full of fury; his eyes glared with wickedness; his discourse breathed nothing but arrogance. You might have thought that he had assured himself of the consulship, and that he had got it locked up at home. Murena he despised. Sulpicius he considered as his prosecutor, not as a competitor. He threatened him with violence; he threatened the republic.

And I need not remind you with what terror all good men were seized in consequence of these occurrences, and how entirely they would all have despaired of the republic if he had been made consul. All this you yourselves recollect; for you remember, when the expressions of that wicked gladiator got abroad, which he was said to have used at a meeting at his own house, when he said that it was impossible for any faithful defender of the miserable citizens to be found, except a man who was himself miserable; that men in an embarrassed and desperate condition ought not to trust the promises of men of a flourishing and fortunate estate; and therefore that those who were desirous to replace what they had spent, and to recover what they had lost, had better consider what he himself owed, what he possessed, and what he would dare to do; that that man ought to be very fearless and thoroughly overwhelmed by misfortune, who was to be the leader and standard-bearer of unfortunate men.