[3]
And first of all I will answer Marcus Cato a man who directs his life by a certain rule and
system and who most carefully weighs the motives of every duty about my own duty. Cato says it
is not right that I who have been consul and the very passer 1 of the law of bribery and corruption and who
behaved so rigorously in my own consulship should take up the cause of Lucius Murena and his
reproach has great weight with me and makes me desirous to make not only you, O
judges, whom I am especially bound to satisfy, but also Cato himself, a most worthy and
upright man, approve the reasons of my action. By whom then, O Marcus Cato, is it more just
that a consul should be defended than by a consul? Who can there be, who ought there to be,
dearer to me in the republic, than he to whom the republic which has been supported by my
great labours and dangers is delivered by me alone to be supported for the future? For if, in
the demanding back things which may be alienated, he ought to incur the hazard of the trial
who has bound himself by a legal obligation, surely still more rightly in the trial of a
consul elect, that consul who has declared him consul ought most especially to be the first
mover of the kindness of the Roman people, and his defender from danger.
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1 There had been several previous laws against bribery and corruption (de ambitu). The Lex Acilia, passed B.C. 67, imposed a fine on the offending party, with exclusion from the senate and from all public offices. The Lex Tullia, passed in Cicero's consulship, added banishment for ten years; and, among other restrictions, forbade any one to exhibit gladiators within two years of his being a candidate, unless he was required to do so on a fixed day by a testator's will.
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