on the one side, those who were disqualified by
the laws of Sylla from holding any public offices, being neither
inconsiderable in power nor in number, came forward as candidates and
entreated the people; on the other hand, the tribunes of the people
proposed laws to the same purpose, constituting a commission of ten
persons, with unlimited powers, in whom as supreme governors should be
vested the right of selling the public lands of all Italy and Syria and
Pompey's new conquests, of judging and banishing whom they pleased, of
planting colonies, of taking money out of the treasury, and of levying
and paying what soldiers should be though needful. And several of the
nobility favored this law, but especially Caius Antonius, Cicero's
colleague, in hopes of being one of the ten. But what gave the greatest
fear to the nobles was, that he was thought privy to the conspiracy of
Catiline, and not to dislike it because of his great debts.

Cicero, endeavoring in the first place to provide a remedy against
this danger, procured a decree assigning to Antonius the province of
Macedonia, he himself declining that of Gaul, which was offered to him.
And this piece of favor so completely won over Antonius, that he was
ready to second, like a hired player, whatever Cicero said for the good
of the country. And now, having made his colleague tame and tractable,
he could with greater courage attack the conspirators. Therefore, in the
senate, making an oration against the law of the ten commissioners, he
so confounded those who proposed it, that they had nothing to reply.

For Cicero, it may be said, was the one man, above all others, who made
the Romans feel how great a charm eloquence lends to what is good, and
how invincible justice is if it be well presented. An incident occurred
in the theatre, during his consulship, which showed what his speaking
could do. Formerly the knights of Rome were mingled in the theatre
with the common people, and took their places amongst them just as it
happened; but when Marcus Otho became praetor he distinguished them from
the other citizens, and appointed them special seats, which they still
enjoy as their place in the theatre. This the common people took as
an indignity done to them, and, therefore, when Otho appeared in the
theatre they hissed him; the knights, on the contrary, received him
with loud clapping. The people repeated and increased their hissing; the
knights continued their clapping. Upon t