But at that time there were two consuls, whose minds, narrow, contemptible, mean,
 groveling, dark, and dirty, were unable to look properly at, or to uphold, or to support the
 mere name of the consulship, much less the splendour of that honour, and the importance of
 that authority. They were not consuls, but dealers in provinces, and sellers of your dignity.
 One of whom demanded back from me, in the hearing of many, Catiline, his lover; the other
 reclaimed Cethegus, his cousin;—the two most wicked men in the memory of man, who (I will not
 call them consuls, but robbers) not only deserted, in a cause in which, above all others, the
 welfare of the republic and the dignity of the consulship was concerned, but betrayed me, and
 opposed me, and wished to see me stripped of all aid, not only from themselves, but also from
 you and from the other orders of the state. One of them, however, deceived neither me nor any
 one else. For who ever could have any hope of any good existing in that man, the
 earliest period of whose life was made openly subservient to everyone's lusts; who had not the
 heart to repel the obscene impurity of men from the holiest portion of his person? who, after
 he had ruined his own estate with no less activity than he afterwards displayed in his
 endeavours to ruin the republic, supported his indigence and his luxury by every sort of
 pandering and infamy; who, if he had not taken refuge at the altar of the tribuneship, would
 not have been able to escape from the authority of the praetor, nor the multitude of his
 creditors, nor the seizure of his goods. And if he had not while in discharge of that office,
 passed that law about the piratical war, he, in truth, would have yielded to his own poverty
 and wickedness, and had recourse to piracy himself; and who would have done so with less
 injury to the republic than he did by remaining within our walls as an impious enemy and
 robber. It was he who was inspecting victims, and sitting in the discharge of that duty, when
 a tribune of the people procured a law to be passed that no regard should be had to the
 auspices,—that no one should on that account be allowed to interrupt the assembly or the
 comitia , or to put his veto on the passing of a law; and
 that the Aelian and Fufian “The Aelia
 lex and Rufia lex were passed about the end of
 the sixth century of the city, and gave all magistrates the obnuntiatio , or power of preventing or dissolving the comitia by observing the omens, and declaring them to be unfavourable.”—Smith,
 Dict. Ant. p. 560, v. Lex . laws should have no
 validity, which our ancestors had enacted, intending them to be the firmest protection of the
 republic against the insanity of the tribunes. And he also afterwards, when a countless multitude of virtuous men had come to him from the
 Capitol as suppliants, and in morning garments, and when all the most noble young men of Rome,
 and all the Roman knights, had thrown themselves at the feet of that most profligate pander,
 with what an expression of countenance did that curled and perfumed debauchee reject, not only
 the tears of the citizens, but even the prayers of his country! Nor was he content with that
 but he even went up to the assembly, and there said what even if his man Catiline had come to
 life again he would not have dared to say,—that he would make the Roman knights pay for the
 nones of December of my consulship, and for the Capitoline Hill; and he not only said this,
 but he even summoned those before him that suited him. And this imperious consul actually
 banished from the city Lucius Lamia, a Roman knight, a man of the highest character, and a
 very eager advocate of my safety, because of his intimacy with me, and very much attached to
 the state, as it was likely that a man of his fortune would be. And when you had passed a
 resolution to change your garments, and had changed them, and though, indeed, all virtuous men
 had already done the same thing, he, reeking with perfumes, clad in his toga praetexta , which all the praetors and aediles had at that time
 laid aside, derided your mourning garb, and the grief of a most grateful city, and did what no
 tyrant ever did,—he issued an edict that you should lament your disasters in secret and not
 presume openly to bewail the miseries of your country.