On the expiration of his office he declined the government of a province, which was the usual reward of that magistracy, preferring to employ his best efforts at home towards the attainment at the proper period of the consular office. This was perhaps his chief object in undertaking the defence of C. Cornelius, the tribune of the preceding year, against a charge of treason, which was supported by the whole influence of the aristocracy. The guilt of Cornelius con sisted in his energetic and successful support of the law against bribery in elections, called the Lex A cdia-Calpurnia. Cicero pub lished two orations spoken in this cause, the loss of which is the more to be regretted as they were reckoned amongst the most finished of his compositions, both by others and by himself. The return of Atticus from Athens at this time was most opportune to his friend Cicero, who looked upon the following year (n.c. 64) as the most critical in his life ; and Atticus being intimately connected with the influentiul men of the aristodratio party, could give essential assist ance to a new man, as the phrase was, against six candidates, two of whom were of patrician blood, while the fathers or ancestors of all had already filled public magistracies. Cicero's father just lived to witness the election of his son to the highest office iu the state.
From this point the life of Cicero is the history of the times. Of the orations he made in the year of his consulate he has himself given a list in a letter to Atticus.
On the kalends of January, immediately upon his assuming the con sular robes, he attacked a tribune, P. Servilius Rullus, who had a few days before given notice of an Agrarian law. Of this speech, which was addressed to the senate, there exists a considerable fragment, and enough to show that Cicero was already prepared to attach him self to the aristocratic party, whereas up to this time his political lifo had been of an opposite complexion. His panegyrist, Middleton, seems to acknowledge the change, and attributes his past conduct to that necessity by which the candidates for office were forced, in the subordinate magistracies, to practise all the arts of popularity, and to look forward to the consulship as the end of this subjection. Before the people indeed, to whom he addressed two speeches upon the same subject, Cicero still wore the popular mask ; and while he expressed his approbation of the principle of Agrarian laws, and pronounced a panegyric on the two Gracchi, he artfully opposed the particular law in question on the ground that the bill of Rullus created commissioners with despotic powers that might endanger the liberties of Rome, and he prevailed upon one of the other tribunes to put his veto upon the bill. In the defence of Rabirius, who was charged with the murder of the tribune Saturninus three-and-thirty years before, he goes so far as to maintain the right of the senate to place Rome in a state of siege, if we may borrow a modern term, or, in other words, to suspend all the laws which protect the lives of citizens; yet in the same speech be endeavours to curry favour with the people by heaping the highest praises on their favourite Marius. Rabirius had already been con
victed by the judges appointed to investigate the charge, but appealed, as the law allowed him, to the people, who accordingly assembled in the Field of Mars to hear the appeaL While the trial was proceeding, it was observed that the flag upon the Janiculum on the other sicde of the Tiber was lowered. This of necessity broke up the assembly, according to an old law which was made when the limits of the Roman empire extended only a few miles from the city, and was intended to protect the citizens from being surprised by the enemy. The object of this law had long passed away, but Roman superstition still maintained the useless ceremony, and the aristocratic party employed it on the present occasion in the hands of Metellus the praetor to annul the proceedings of justice. The orations in which he defended Otho against the populace, who were enraged at his law for setting apart special seats in the theatre for the order of the knights, and that in which he opposed the restoration of their civil rights to the sons of those who had been proscribed by Sulla, were also delivered this year, but nothing remains of them. Of the con spiracy against Catiline, and the several speeches which were made by Cicero in relation to him, it ie unnecessary to say more than will be found under the head CATILINA.
Two other causes, in which Cicero's services as an advocate were called forth during this year, were those in which he defended C.
Calpurnlus Piso, the consul of B.O. 67, and L. Murena, the consul elect. The oration in defence of Piso is not extant, but it appears that the prosecution was for extortion in his government of Cisalpine Gaul, and was maintained at the instance of Ciesar. Cicero, in a speech made on a. subsequent occasion, seems to admit the guilt of his diwt, and to account for his acquittal on grounds altogether foreign to the merits of the case; another proof of the change that had taken place In the patriotic prosecutor of Verres. Ills conduct is Doe less reprehensible in the affair of Murena, who was charged with bribery, treating, and other violations of the law, In his late election to the cononIshist Ills guilt will not ho doubtful to a careful reader of his advocate's speech. The prosecution was supported by Sulplcins and Cato, the former a man who may be looked upon as almost the founder of Roman law as a science, and Cato certainly the moat homed of his party. Yet Cicero, instead of grappling with the eharge.desoeeds to a personal attack on the advocates opposed to him, rallying the profeerion of Sulpiciva as trifling, and the principles of a? impracticable. Ills defence amounts in fact to a defence of the crime rather than the criminal, which was the more discreditable, as he himself had only a few weeks before carried a new law against bribery.