What, then, am I saying? Do I mean that a man is not to prosecute another for any injury which he may have received? Certainly I mean nothing of the sort. But the times for prosecuting and for standing for the consulship are different. I consider that a candidate for any office, especially for the consulship, ought to come down into the forum and into the Campus Martius with great hopes, with great courage, and with great resources. But I do not like a candidate to be looking about for evidence—conduct which is a sure forerunner of a repulse. I do not like his being anxious to marshal witnesses rather than voters. I do not fancy threats instead of caresses,—declamation where there should be salutation; especially as, according to the new fashion now existing, all candidates visit the houses of nearly all the citizens, and from their countenances men form their conjectures as to what spirits and what probabilities of success each candidate has.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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