Second Oration After Cicero's Return: Addressed to the People. (16-20)

And so the consuls, the praetors, the tribunes of the people, the senate, and all Italy continually begged my safety from you, though I was destitute of relations, and not fortified by any extensive connections. Lastly, every one who was distinguished by any great kindnesses and honours from you, when they were brought before you by Italy, not only expected you to preserve me, but were the asserters, and witnesses, and panegyrists of all my exploits.

I owe this man, O Romans, such a debt as it is hardly right for one man to owe to another. You, following the counsels of this man, and the opinion of Publius Lentulus, and the authority of the senate, have replaced me in that position in which I had been through your kindness, and that by the votes of the same centuries by which you originally placed me there. At the same time you heard from the same place men of the greatest eminence—most accomplished and honourable citizens, the chief men of the city, all the men of consular rank, all the men of praetorian rank, say the same thing—that it was clear by the testimony of everybody, that the republic had been preserved by me alone. Therefore, when Publius Servilius, a man of the greatest dignity, and a most accomplished citizen, had said that it was through my labours that the republic had been handed over to the magistrates in a sound condition, all the rest declared their assent to that statement. But you heard at that time not only the authoritative declaration, but the sworn evidence of a most illustrious man, Lucius Gellius, who, because he was aware that his fleet had been tampered with, and that he himself had been in great danger, said in your assembly that if I had not been consul when I was, the republic would have been utterly destroyed.

But if any one thinks that either my inclinations are changed, or my courage weakened, or my spirit broken, he is greatly mistaken. All that the violence, and injustice, and the frenzy of wicked men could take from me, it has taken away, stripped me of, and destroyed; that which cannot be taken away from a brave man remains and shall remain. I saw that most brave man, a fellow-citizen of my own municipal town, Caius Marius, since, as if by some fatal necessity, we both had not only to contend with those who wished to destroy all these things, but with fortune also—still I saw him, when he was in extreme

And I heard him say that he had been miserable when he was deprived of his country which he had delivered from siege; when he heard that his property was taken possession of and plundered by his enemies; when he saw his young son a sharer of the same calamity; when, up to his neck in the marshes, he only preserved his body and his life by the aid of the Minturnensians, who thronged to the place and pitied him; when, having crossed over to Africa in a little boat, he had arrived as a beggar and a suppliant among those people to whom he himself had given kingdoms; but that now that he had recovered his dignity he would take care, as all those things which he had lost had been restored to him, still to preserve that fortitude of mind which he never had lost. But there is this difference between myself and him, that he used those means in which he was most powerful, namely his arms, in order to revenge himself on his enemies. I, too, will use the instrument to which I am accustomed; since it is in war and sedition that there is room for his qualities, but in peace and tranquillity that there is scope for mine.