ds in
Campania amongst the soldiers, many in the senate opposed it; amongst
the rest, Lucius Gellius, one of the oldest men in the house, said it
should never pass whilst he lived. "Let us postpone it," said Cicero,
"Gellius does not ask us to wait long." There was a man of the name of
Octavius, suspected to be of African descent. He once said, when Cicero
was pleading, that he could not hear him; "yet there are holes," said
Cicero, "in your ears." When Metellus Nepos told him that he had ruined
more as a witness than he had saved as an advocate, "I admit," said
Cicero, "that I have more truth than eloquence." To a young man who was
suspected of having given a poisoned cake to his father, and who talked
largely of the invectives he meant to deliver against Cicero, "Better
these," replied he, "than your cakes." Publius Sextius, having amongst
others retained Cicero as his advocate in a certain cause, was yet
desirous to say all for himself, and would not allow anybody to speak
for him; when he was about to receive his acquittal from the judges, and
the ballots were passing, Cicero called to him, "make haste, Sextius,
and use your time; to-morrow you will be nobody." He cited Publius Cotta
to bear testimony in a certain cause, one who affected to be thought a
lawyer, though ignorant and unlearned; but when Cotta had said, "I know
nothing at all about the matter," Cicero answered: "You think, perhaps,
we are asking you about a point of law." When Marcus Appius, in the
opening of some speech in a court of justice, said that his friend had
desired him to employ industry, eloquence, and fidelity in that cause,
Cicero asked, "And how have you had the heart not to accede to any one
of his requests?"

One Clodius, whom Cicero had vehemently opposed in an important trial,
having got himself chosen one of the tribunes, immediately attacked
Cicero, endeavoring to incite everybody against him. The common people
he gained over with popular laws; to each of the consuls he decreed
large provinces, to Piso, Macedonia, and to Gabinius, Syria. Of the
three men then in greatest power, Crassus was Cicero's open enemy,
Pompey indifferently made advances to both, and Caesar was going with
an army into Gaul. To him, though not his friend, Cicero applied,
requesting an appointment as one of his lieutenants in the province.
Caesar accepted him, and Clodius, perceiving that Cicero would thus
escape his tribunician authority, professed to be incli