im highly, that
you really mean what you say, that he is making a good investment, and
that there will accrue from it not only a brief and electioneering
friendship, but a firm and lasting one. There will be no one, believe
me, if he has anything in him at all, who will let slip this opportunity
offered of establishing a friendship with you, especially when by good
luck you have competitors whose friendship is one to be neglected or
avoided, and who not only are unable to secure what I am urging you to
secure, but cannot even make the first step towards it. For how should
Antonius make the first step towards attaching people to himself, when
he cannot even call them, unaided, by their proper names? I, for one,
think that there can be no greater folly than to imagine a man
solicitous to serve you whom you don't know by sight. Extraordinary
indeed must be the fame, the political position and extent of the public
services of that man whom entire strangers, without supporters to back
him, would elect to office. That a man without principle or energy,
without doing any good service, and without ability, lying under a cloud
of discredit, and without friends, should beat a man fortified with the
devotion of a numerous circle and by the good opinion of all, cannot
possibly occur except from gross negligence.

VIII. Wherefore see that you have the votes of all the centuries secured
to you by the number and variety of your friends. The first and most
obvious thing is that you should embrace the Roman senators and knights,
and the active and popular men of all the other orders. There are many
city men of good business habits, there are many freedmen engaged in the
forum who are popular and energetic: these men try with all your might
both personally and by common friends, as far as you can, to make eager
in your behalf; seek them out, send agents to them, shew them that they
are putting you under the greatest obligation. After that review the
entire city, all colleges, districts, neighbourhoods. If you attach to
yourself the leading men of these, you will by their means easily keep a
hold upon the multitude. When you have done that, take care to have in
your mind a chart of all Italy laid out according to the tribe of each
town, and learn it by heart, so that you may not allow any _municipium_,
colony, prefecture, or, in a word, any spot in Italy to exist, in which
you have not a sufficient foothold. Inquire also for and trace out