What was it, then, that influenced the censors? Even they themselves, if they were to allege
 the most serious reason that they could, would not say it was anything else beyond common
 conversation and report. They will say that they found out nothing by witnesses, nothing by
 documents, nothing by any important evidence, nothing, in short, from any investigation of the
 cause. If they had investigated it, still their sentence ought not to have been so fixed as to
 be impossible to be altered. I will not quote precedents, of which, however, there is an
 infinite number; I will not mention any old instance, or any powerful or influential man. Very
 lately, when I had defended an insignificant man, clerk to the aediles, Decius Matrinius, before
 Marcus Junius and Quintus Publicius, the praetors, and before Marcus Platorius and Caius
 Flaminius, the curule aediles, I persuaded them,—men sworn to do their duty,—to choose him for
 their secretary whom those same censors had made an aerarian; for as there was no fault found in
 the man, they thought that they ought to inquire what he deserved, and not what resolution had
 been come to respecting him. For as for these things which
 they have stated in their notes, about corrupting the judges, who is there who believes that
 they were sufficiently ascertained or carefully inquired into by them? I see that a note was
 made by the censors respecting Marcus Aquillius and Titus Gutta;—what does this mean? Were those
 two the only men corrupted with bribes? What became of the rest? Did they, forsooth, condemn him
 for nothing? He, then, was not unfairly dealt with; he was not overwhelmed by means of bribes;
 it is not the case, as all these assemblies stirred up by Quinctius would have it, that all the
 men who voted against Oppianicus are to be imagined criminal, or at all events suspected. I see
 that two men alone are judged by the authority of the censors to have been implicated in that
 infamy; or else they must allege that there is something which they have found out concerning
 those two men which they have not found out respecting the others. For that indeed can never be allowed, that they should transfer the usage of military
 discipline to the animadversions and authority of the censors; for our ancestors established a
 rule, that if in military affairs a crime had been committed by a number of soldiers, a few
 should be punished by lot, that so fear might have its influence on all, while the punishment
 reached only a few. But how can it be fitting for the censors to act on this principle in the
 distribution of dignities, in their judgment on the character of citizens, and in their
 punishment of their vices? For a soldier who has not maintained his post, who has been afraid of
 the vigorous attack of the enemy, may still hereafter become a better soldier, and a virtuous
 man, and a useful citizen. Wherefore, to prevent his committing offences in time of war through
 fear of the enemy, the great fear of death and execution was established by our ancestors; but
 yet, that the number of those who underwent capital punishment might not be too great, that plan
 of drawing lots was invented. But will you, O censor, act in
 this way when choosing the senate? Supposing there are many who have taken bribes to condemn an
 innocent man, will you not punish all of them, but will you pick as you choose, and select a few
 out of the many to brand with ignominy? Shall the senate then, while you see and know it to be
 the case, have a senator—shall the Roman people have a judge—shall the republic have a citizen,
 unmarked by any ignominy, who, to cause the ruin of an innocent man, has sold his good faith and
 religion for a bribe? And shall a man, who, being induced by a bribe, has deprived an innocent
 citizen of his country, his fortune, and his children, not be branded by the stigma of the
 censor's severity? Are you the prefect appointed to supervise our manners—are you a teacher of
 the ancient discipline and severity, if you either knowingly retain any one in the senate who is
 tainted with such wickedness, or if you decide that it is not right to inflict the same
 punishment on every one who is guilty of the same fault, or wild you establish the same
 principle of punishment with respect to the dishonesty of a senator in his peaceful capacity,
 which our ancestors chose to establish with respect to the cowardice of a soldier in time of
 war? Moreover, if this precedent ought to have been transferred from military affairs to the
 animadversion of the censors, at all events the system of drawing lots should have been
 retained. But if it is not consistent with the dignity of a censor to draw lots for punish meet,
 and to commit the guilt of men to the decision of fortune, it certainly cannot be right in the
 case of an offence committed by many, that a few should be selected for ignominy and disgrace.
 But we all understand that in these notes of the censors the real object was to catch at some
 breeze of popular favour. The matter had been brought forward in the assembly by a factious
 tribune; without any investigation into the business, his conduct was approved by the multitude;
 no one was allowed to say a word on the other side; indeed, no one showed the least anxiety to
 espouse the other side of the question. Moreover, those judges had already become exceedingly
 unpopular. A few months afterwards there was a fresh and very great odium excited with respect
 to the courts of justice, arising out of the affair of marking the balloting balls. The disgrace
 into which the courts were fallen appeared quite impossible to be overlooked or treated with
 indifference by the censors. So they chose to brand those men whom they saw were infamous for
 other vices, and for generally disgraceful lives, with their animadversion and special note
 also; and so much the more, because at that very time, during their censorship, the right of
 sitting as judges was divided with the equestrian body, in order that they might seem to have
 reproved those tribunals by their authority, through the ignominy inflicted on deserving men.