But your nobility, O Servius Sulpicius, although it is most eminent yet it is known rather to
 men versed in literature and history, but not much so to the people and to the voters. For your
 father was in the rank of the knights, your grandfather was renowned for no conspicuous action.
 So that the recollection of your nobility is to be extracted not from the modern conversation of
 men, but from the antiquity of annals. So that I also am accustomed to class you in our number,
 because you by your own virtue and industry, though you are the son of a Roman knight, have yet
 earned the being considered worthy of the very highest advancement. Nor did it ever seem to me
 that there was less virtue in Quintus Pompeius, a new man and a most brave man, than in that
 most high-born man, Marcus Aemilius. Indeed, it is a proof of the same spirit and genius, to
 hand down to his posterity, as Pompeius did, an honourable name, which he had not
 received from his ancestors; and, as Scaurus did, to renew the recollection of his family which
 was almost extinct. 
 Although I now thought, O judges, that it had been brought about by my labours, that a want of
 nobleness of birth should not be objected to many brave men, who were neglected, though men were
 praising not only the Curii, the Catos, the Pompeii, those ancient new but most distinguished
 men, but also, these more modern new men, the Marii, and Didii, and Coelii. But when I, after so
 great an interval, had broken down those barriers of nobility, so that entrance to the
 consulship should hereafter be opened, as it was in the time of I our ancestors, not more to
 high birth than to virtue, I did not think when a consul-elect of an ancient and illustrious
 family was being defended by the son of a Roman knight himself a consul, that the accusers would
 say anything about newness of family. In truth it happened to me myself to stand against two
 patricians, one a most worthless and audacious man, the other a most modest and virtuous one;
 yet I surpassed Catiline in worth, Galba in popularity. But if that ought to have been imputed
 as a crime to a new man, forsooth, I should have wanted neither enemies nor detractors.
 
 Let us, therefore, give up saying anything about birth, the dignity of which is great in both
 the candidates; let us look at the other points. He stood for the quaestorship at the same time
 with me, and I was appointed first. We need not answer every point; for it cannot escape the
 observation of any one of you, when many men are appointed equal in dignity, but only one can
 obtain the first place, that the order of the dignity and of the declaration of it are not the
 same, because the declaration has degrees, but the dignity of all is usually the same. But the
 quaestorship of each was, given them by almost an equal decision of the lots: the one had by the
 Titian law a quiet and orderly province; you had that, one of Ostia, at the name of which, when
 the quaestors distribute the provinces by lot, a shout, is raised,—a province not so much
 pleasant and illustrious as troublesome and vexatious. The name of each was together in the
 quaestorship. For the drawing of the lots gave you no field on which your virtue could display
 itself and make itself known. The remaining space of time is
 dedicated to the contest. It was employed by each in a very dissimilar fashion. 
 Servius adopted the civil service, full of anxiety and annoyance, of answering,
 writing, cautioning; he learned the civil law; he worked early and late, he toiled, he was
 visible to every one, he endured the folly of crowds, he tolerated their arrogance, he bore all
 sorts of difficulties, he lived at the will of others, not at his own. It is a great credit a
 thing pleasing to men, for one man to labour hard in that science which will profit many.
 
 What has Murena been doing in the meantime? He was lieutenant to Lucius Lucullus, a very brave
 and wise man, and a consummate general; and in this post he commanded an army, he fought a
 battle, he engaged the enemy, he routed numerous forces of the enemy, he took several cities,
 some by storm, some by blockade. He traversed that populous and luxurious Asia you speak of; in
 such a manner as to leave in it no trace either of his avarice or of his luxury; in a most
 important war he so behaved himself that he performed many glorious exploits without the
 commander-in-chief; but the commander-in-chief did nothing without him. And all these things,
 although I am speaking in the presence of Lucius Lucullus, yet that we may not appear to have a
 licence of invention granted us by him on account of the danger we are in, we are borne witness
 to in the public despatches; in which Lucius Lucullus gives him such praise as no ambitious nor
 envious commander-in-chief could have given another while dividing with him the credit of his
 exploits.