eral; the having your house
full of callers long before daybreak; the presence of large numbers of
every class; that your look and speech give satisfaction to all, your
acts and deeds to many; that everything is done which can be done by
hard work, skill, and attention, not to cause the fame arising from all
these displays of feeling to reach the people, but to bring the people
itself to share them. You have already won the city populace and the
affections of those who control the public meetings by your panegyric of
Pompey, by undertaking the cause of Manilius, by your defence of
Cornelius.[733] We must not let those advantages be forgotten, which
hitherto no one has had without possessing at the same time the favour
of the great. We must also take care that everyone knows that Cn.
Pompeius is strongly in your favour, and that it emphatically suits his
purpose that you should win your election. Lastly, take care that your
whole candidature is full of _eclat_, brilliant, splendid, suited to the
popular taste, presenting a spectacle of the utmost dignity and
magnificence. See also, if possible, that some new scandal is started
against your competitors for crime or looseness of life or corruption,
such as is in harmony with their characters.

Above all in this election you must see that the Republic entertains a
good hope and an honourable opinion of you. And yet you must not enter
upon political measures in senate-house and public meeting while a
candidate: you must hold such things in abeyance, in order that from
your lifelong conduct the senate may judge you likely to be the
supporter of their authority; the Roman knights, along with the
loyalists and wealthy, judge you from your past to be eager for peace
and quiet times; and the people think of you as not likely to be hostile
to their interests from the fact that in your style of speaking in
public meetings, and in your declared convictions, you have been on the
popular side.

XIV. This is what occurred to me to say on the subject of these two
morning reflexions, which I said you ought to turn over in your mind
every day as you went down to the forum: "I am a _novus homo_," "I am a
candidate for the consulship." There remains the third, "This is Rome,"
a city made up of a combination of nations, in which many snares, much
deception, many vices enter into every department of life: in which you
have to put up with the arrogant pretensions, the wrong-headedness, the
i