ore
statesman-like. So I have done with these speeches of mine which may be
called 'consulares,'" as having been made not only in his consular year
but also with something of consular dignity. "Of these, one, on the new
land laws proposed, was spoken in the Senate on the kalends of January.
The second, on the same subject, to the people. The third was respecting
Otho's law.[152] The fourth was in defence of Rabirius.[153] The fifth
was in reference to the children of those who had lost their property
and their rank under Sulla's proscription.[154] The sixth was an address
to the people, and explained why I renounced my provincial
government.[155] The seventh drove Catiline out of the city. The eighth
was addressed to the people the day after Catiline fled. The ninth was
again spoken to the people, on the day on which the Allobroges gave
their evidence. Then, again, the tenth was addressed to the Senate on
the fifth of December"--also respecting Catiline. "There are also two
short supplementary speeches on the Agrarian war. You shall have the
whole body of them. As what I write and what I do are equally
interesting to you, you will gather from the same documents all my
doings and all my sayings."

It is not to be supposed that in this list are contained all the
speeches which he made in his consular year, but those only which he
made as Consul--those to which he was desirous of adding something of
the dignity of statesmanship, something beyond the weight attached to
his pleadings as a lawyer. As an advocate, Consul though he was, he
continued to perform his work; from whence we learn that no State
dignity was so high as to exempt an established pleader from the duty of
defending his friends. Hortensius, when Consul elect, had undertaken to
defend Verres. Cicero defended Murena when he was Consul. He defended C.
Calpurnius Piso also, who was accused, as were so many, of proconsular
extortion; but whether in this year or in the preceding is not, I think,
known.[156] Of his speech on that occasion we have nothing remaining. Of
his pleading for Murena we have, if not the whole, the material part,
and, though nobody cares very much for Murena now, the oration is very
amusing. It was made toward the end of the year, on the 20th of
November, after the second Catiline oration, and before the third, at
the very moment in which Cicero was fully occupied with the evidence on
which he intended to convict Catiline's fellow-conspirato