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 into the
 Campus Martius with great hopes, with great courage, and with great resources. But I do not like
 a candidate to be looking about for evidence—conduct which is a sure forerunner of a repulse. I
 do not like his being anxious to marshal witnesses rather than voters. I do not fancy threats
 instead of caresses,—declamation where there should be salutation; especially as, according to
 the new fashion now existing, all candidates visit the houses of nearly all the citizens, and
 from their countenances men form their conjectures as to what spirits and what probabilities of
 success each candidate has. “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.