In the Senate after his Return (8-11)

O ye immortal gods! what great kindness do you appear to have shown me, in making Publius Lentulus consul this year. How much greater still would your bounty bare been, had he been so the preceding year; for I should not have been in want of such medicine as a consul could give, unless I had fallen by a wound inflicted by a consul. I had been often told by one of the wisest of men and one of the most virtuous of citizens, Quintus Catulus, that it was not often that there was one wicked consul, but that there had never been two at the same time since the foundation of Rome, except in that terrible time of Cinna. Wherefore, he used to say that my interest would always be firmly secured, as long as there was even one virtuous consul in the republic. And he would have spoken the truth, if that state of things with respect to consuls could have remained lasting and perpetual, that, as there never had been two bad ones in the republic, so there never should be. But if Quintus Metellus had been at that time consul, who was then my enemy, do you doubt what would have been his feelings with regard to my preservation, when you see that he was a mover and seconder of the measure proposed for my restoration?

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.