whom the senate had complimented with
the title of an ally and friend of the Roman people. This was generally
resented; but, notwithstanding, there was so much opposition from the
faction of the nobles, that he could not carry his point. In order,
therefore, to diminish their influence by every means in his power, he
restored the trophies erected in honour of Caius Marius, on account of
his victories over Jugurtha, the Cimbri, and the Teutoni, which had been
demolished by Sylla; and when sitting in judgment upon murderers, he
treated those as assassins, who, in the late proscription, had received
money from the treasury, for bringing in the heads of Roman citizens,
although they were expressly excepted in the Cornelian laws.

XII. He likewise suborned some one to prefer an impeachment (9) for
treason against Caius Rabirius, by whose especial assistance the senate
had, a few years before, put down Lucius Saturninus, the seditious
tribune; and being drawn by lot a judge on the trial, he condemned him
with so much animosity, that upon his appealing to the people, no
circumstance availed him so much as the extraordinary bitterness of his
judge.

XIII. Having renounced all hope of obtaining Egypt for his province, he
stood candidate for the office of chief pontiff, to secure which, he had
recourse to the most profuse bribery. Calculating, on this occasion, the
enormous amount of the debts he had contracted, he is reported to have
said to his mother, when she kissed him at his going out in the morning
to the assembly of the people, "I will never return home unless I am
elected pontiff." In effect, he left so far behind him two most powerful
competitors, who were much his superiors both in age and rank, that he
had more votes in their own tribes, than they both had in all the tribes
together.

XIV. After he was chosen praetor, the conspiracy of Catiline was
discovered; and while every other member of the senate voted for
inflicting capital punishment on the accomplices in that crime [33], he
alone proposed that the delinquents should be distributed for safe
custody among the towns of Italy, their property being confiscated. He
even struck such terror into those who were advocates for greater
severity, by representing to them what universal odium would be attached
to their memories by the Roman people, that Decius Silanus, consul elect,
did not hesitate to qualify his proposal, it not being very honourable to
change