[2]
And accordingly, this place has never been unoccupied by
men who were defending your cause, and my industry, which has been virtuously and honestly
employed about the dangers of private individuals, has received its most honourable reward in
your approbation. For when, on account of the adjournment of the comitia, I was three times
elected the first praetor by all the centuries, I easily perceived, O Romans, what your
opinion of me was, and what conduct you enjoined to others. Now, when there is that authority
in me which you, by conferring honours on me, have chosen that there should be, and all that
facility in pleading which almost daily practice in speaking can give a vigilant man who has
habituated himself to the forum, at all events, if I have any authority, I will employ it
before those who have given it to me; and if I can accomplish anything by speaking, I will
display it to those men above all others, who have thought fit, by their decision, to confer
honours on that qualification.
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.