the first of the two years between
his Praetorship and Consulship, B.C. 65--he made a speech in defence of
one Caius Cornelius, as to which we hear that the pleadings in the case
occupied four days. This, with our interminable "causes celebres," does
not seem much to us, but Cicero's own speech was so long that in
publishing it he divided it into two parts. This Cornelius had been
Tribune in the year but one before, and was accused of having misused
his power when in office. He had incurred the enmity of the aristocracy
by attempts made on the popular side to restrain the Senate; especially
by the stringency of a law proposed for stopping bribery at elections.
Cicero's speeches are not extant. We have only some hardly intelligible
fragments of them, which were preserved by Asconius,[145] a commentator
on certain of Cicero's orations; but there is ground for supposing that
these Cornelian orations were at the time matter of as great moment as
those spoken against Verres, or almost as those spoken against Catiline.
Cicero defended Cornelius, who was attacked by the Senate--by the rich
men who desired office and the government of provinces. The law proposed
for the restriction of bribery at elections no doubt attempted to do
more by the severity of its punishment than can be achieved by such
means: it was mitigated, but was still admitted by Cicero to be too
rigorous. The rancor of the Senate against Cornelius seems to have been
due to this attempt; but the illegality with which he was charged, and
for which he was tried, had reference to another law suggested by
him--for restoring to the people the right of pardon which had been
usurped by the Senate. Caius Cornelius seems to have been a man honest
and eager in his purpose to save the Republic from the greed of the
oligarchs, but--as had been the Gracchi--ready in his eagerness to push
his own authority too far in his attempt to restrain that of the Senate.
A second Tribune, in the interest of the Senate, attempted to exercise
an authority which undoubtedly belonged to him, by inhibiting the
publication or reading of the proposed law. The person whose duty it was
to read it was stopped; then Cornelius pushed aside the inferior
officer, and read it himself. There was much violence, and the men who
brought the accusation about Cornelius--two brothers named Cominii--had
to hide themselves, and saved their lives by escaping over the roofs of
the houses.

This took place when