Now you have seen the kindness and zeal of the others; how devoted to me was
 Caius Cestilius, how attached to you, how uniformly faithful to our cause. What did Marcus
 Cispius do? I know how much I owe to him and to his father and brother; and they, though they
 had some personal grudge against me on their own private account, still disregarded their
 private dislike out of recollection of my services to the state. Also, Titus Fadius, who was
 my quaestor, and Marcus Curtius, to whose father I was quaestor, cherished the memory of our
 connection with all zeal, and affection, and courage. Caius Messius made many speeches in my
 behalf, for the sake both of our friendship and of the republic. And he at the beginning
 proposed a special law respecting my safety. If Quintus Fabricius could only have effected, in spite of violence and arms, what he
 endeavoured to do in my behalf, we should have recovered our position in the month of January.
 His own inclination prompted him to labour for my safety, violence checked him, your authority
 recalled him. 
 Of what disposition towards me the praetors were, you were able to
 form an opinion when Lucius Caecilius, in his private character, laboured to support me from
 his own resources, and in his public capacity proposed a law respecting my safety, in concert
 with all his colleagues, and refused the plunderers of my property permission to support their
 actions by legal proceedings. But Marcus Calidius, the moment he was elected, showed by his
 vote how dear my safety was to him. Caius Septimius, Quintus Valerius, Publius Crassus, Sextus Quintilius, and Caius Cornutus,
 all devoted all their energies to the promotion of my interests and those of the republic.
 And while I gladly make mention of these things, I am not unwilling
 to pass over the wicked actions done by some people with a view to injure me. It is not suited
 to my fortunes at present to remember injuries, which, even if I were able to revenge them, I
 still would rather forget. All my life is to be devoted to a different object: to that of
 showing my gratitude to those who have deserved well of me; to preserving those friendships
 which have been tried in the fire; to waging war against my open enemies; to pardoning my
 timid friends; to avoiding the showing those who deserted me any indignation at having been
 forced to leave the city; to console those who promoted my return by a proper display of my
 dignity. And if I had no other duty before me for all the rest of my life, except to appear
 sufficiently grateful to the very originators and prime movers and authors of my safety, still
 I should think the period that remains to me of life too brief; I will not say for requiting,
 but even for enumerating the kindnesses which have been shown to me. For, when shall I, or
 when will all my relations, be able to show proper gratitude to this man and to his children?
 What memory, what force of genius, what amount of deference and respect will be a fit return
 for such numerous and immense services? He was the first man who held out to me the promise
 and faith of a consul when I was overwhelmed and miserable; he it was who recalled me from
 death to life, from despair to hope, from destruction to safety. His affection for me, his
 zeal for the republic, was so great, that he kept thinking how he might not only relieve my
 calamity, but how he might even make it honourable. For what could be more honourable, what
 could happen to me more creditable, than that which you decreed on his motion, that all people
 from all Italy, who desired the safety of the republic, should come forward for the sole
 purpose of supporting and defending me, a ruined and almost broken-hearted man? So that the
 senate summoned the citizens and the whole of Italy to come from all their lands and from
 every town to the defence of one man, with the very same force of expression which had never
 been used but three times before since the foundation of Rome, and at those times it was the
 consul who used it in behalf of the entire republic, addressing himself to those only who
 could hear his voice. What could I leave to my posterity more glorious than the fact, that
 the senate had declared its judgment that any citizen who did not defend me, did not desire
 the safety of the republic? Therefore your authority, and the preeminent dignity of the
 consul, had this great effect, that every one thought that he was committing a shameful crime
 if he did not come to that summons. And this same consul, when that incredible multitude, when
 Italy itself I might almost say, had come to Rome, summoned you repeatedly to the Capitol; and
 at that time you had an opportunity of seeing what great power excellence of natural
 disposition and true nobleness have. For Quintus Metellus, himself an enemy of mine, and a
 brother of an enemy of mine, as soon as he was assured of your inclinations, laid aside his
 own private dislike to me and allowed Publius Servilius, a most illustrious man,
 and also a most virtuous one, and a most intimate friend of my own, to recall him, by what I
 may call the divine influence of his authority and eloquence, to the exploits and virtues of
 his race and of their common family, so as to take to his counsels his brother, in the shades
 below, the companion of my fortunes, and all the Metelli, those most admirable citizens,
 summoning them as it were from Acheron; and among them the great conqueror of Numidia, whose
 departure from his country formerly seemed grievous to all the citizens, but scarcely even
 vexatious to himself.