[4] “Catilina, si judicatum erit, meridie non lucere, certus erit competitor.”—Epist. ad Atticum, i. 1.
[5] “Hoc tempore Catilinam, competitorem nostrum, defendere cogitamus. Judices habemus, quos volumus, summa accusatoris voluntate. Spero, si absolutus erit, conjunctiorem illum nobis fore in ratione petitionis.”—Ib., i. 2.
[6] “Scito nihil tam exercitum nunc esse Romae quam candidatos omnibus iniquitatibus.”—Ib., i. 11.
[7] I use a word apparently modern, but Cicero himself gave the name of Conservatores Reipublicae to the party to which he belonged.
[8] Suetonius, speaking of Augustus, says: “Quoties adesset, nihil praeterea agebat, seu vitandi rumoris causâ, quo patrem Caesarem vulgo reprehensum commemorabat, quod inter spectandum epistolis libellisque legendis aut rescribendis vacaret; seu studio spectandi et voluptate,” etc.—Vita Octavii, 45.
[9] Writing three years later to Atticus, he says: “Confirmabam omnium privatorum possessiones, is enim est noster exercitus, ut tute scis locupletium.”—To Atticus, i. 19. Pomponius Atticus, Cicero’s most intimate correspondent, was a Roman knight, who inheriting a large estate from his father, increased it by contracts, banking, money-lending, and slave-dealing, in which he was deeply engaged. He was an accomplished, cultivated man, a shrewd observer of the times, and careful of committing himself on any side. His acquaintance with Cicero rested on similarity of temperament, with a solid financial basis at the bottom of it. They were mutually useful to each other.
[10] “Et nimium istud est, quod ab hoc tribuno plebis dictum est in senatu: urbanam plebem nimium in republicâ posse: exhauriendam esse: hoc enim verbo est usus; quasi de aliquâ sentinâ, ac non de optimorum civium genere loqueretur.”—Contra Rullum, ii. 26.
[11] Cicero, Pro Murenâ, 25.
[12] Murena was afterward prosecuted for bribery at this election. Cicero defended him; but even Cato, aristocrat as he was, affected to be shocked at the virtuous consul’s undertaking so bad a case. It is observable that in his speech for Murena, Cicero found as many virtues in Lucullus as in his speech on the Manilian law he had found vices. It was another symptom of his change of attitude.
[13] “In loco munitissimo.”