Second Oration After Cicero's Return: Addressed to the People. (11-15)

And the affair would have been brought to its completion that very day, if that tribune [*] of the people on whom, when I was consul and he quaestor, I had heaped the greatest possible kindnesses, though the whole senatorial body, and Caius Oppius, his father-in-law, a most virtuous man, threw themselves in tears at his feet, had not required a night to consider of it; and that consideration was devoted, not to giving back the bribe which he had received, as some fancied, but as was afterwards discovered, to getting a larger one. After that, no other business was transacted in the senate, and as my recall was hindered by various maneuvers, still, as their inclination was plainly shown, the cause of the senate was brought before you in the course of the month of January. There was this difference between me and my enemies.

I, after I had seen men openly enrolled and registered in the centuries at the tribunal of Aurelius; when I understood that the ancient troops of Catiline had been recalled to hopes of massacre; when I saw that men of that party, of which I myself was accounted one of the chiefs, because some of them envied me, and some feared for themselves, were either betrayers or at least deserters of the cause of my safety; when two consuls, bought by an agreement respecting their provinces, had given themselves up to be leaders to the enemies of the republic, when they saw that their indigence, and their avarice, and their lusts could not be satisfied unless they gave me up bound hand and foot to the enemies of my country; when by edicts and positive commands they forbade the senate and the Roman knights to weep for me, and to change their garments, and address supplications to you; when the bargains made respecting all the provinces, when every sort of covenant made with every sort, of person, and the reconciliation of all quarrels and the treaties between all sorts of jarring interests, were being ratified in my blood; when all virtuous men were willing to die either for me or with me;—I was unwilling to take arms and fight for my own safety (as it was quite in my power to do,) since I thought that, whether I conquered or was defeated, it would be a grievous thing for the republic.

Could I doubt when I was perfectly certain that Publius Lentulus would be consul the next year, who in the most dangerous crisis of the republic had been curule aedile when I was consul, and had been, as such, the partner of all my counsels and the sharer of all my dangers, that he would use the medicine which was within reach of a consul to restore me to safety who was suffering under wounds inflicted by a consul? Under his guidance, and while his colleague, a most merciful and excellent man, at first abstained from opposing him, and afterwards cordially cooperated with him, nearly all the rest of the magistrates were advocates of my safety and among them were those men of indomitable courage, of the most eminent virtue, authority, vigour, and resources, Titus Annius and Publius Sextus, who showed the greatest good-will and the most energetic zeal