ll-will, the hauteur, the disagreeable temper and offensive manners of
many. I well understand that it requires great prudence and skill for a
man, living among social vices of every sort, so many and so serious, to
avoid giving offence, causing scandal, or falling into traps, and in his
single person to adapt himself to such a vast variety of character,
speech, and feeling. Wherefore, I say again and again, go on
persistently in the path you have begun: put yourself above rivalry in
eloquence; it is by this that people at Rome are charmed and attracted,
as well as deterred from obstructing a man's career or inflicting an
injury upon him. And since the chief plague spot of our state is that it
allows the prospect of a bribe to blind it to virtue and worth, be sure
that you are fully aware of your own strength, that is, understand that
you are the man capable of producing in the minds of your rivals the
strongest fear of legal proceeding and legal peril. Let them know that
they are watched and scrutinized by you: they will be in terror of your
energy, as well as of your influence and power of speech, and above all
of the affection of the equestrian order towards you. But though I wish
you to hold out this before them, I do not wish you to make it appear
that you are already meditating an action, but to use this terror so as
to facilitate the gaining of your object: and, in a word, in this
contest strain every nerve and use every faculty in such a way as to
secure what we seek. I notice that there are no elections so deeply
tainted with corruption, but that some centuries return men closely
connected with them without receiving money. Therefore, if we are as
vigilant as the greatness of our object demands, and rouse our
well-wishers to put forth all their energies; and if we allot to men of
influence and zeal in our service their several tasks; if we put before
our rivals the threat of legal proceedings; if we inspire their agents
with fear, and by some means check the distributors, it is possible to
secure either that there shall be no bribery or that it shall be
ineffectual.

These are the points that I thought, not that I knew better than you,
but that I could more easily than you--in the pressing state of your
present engagements--collect together and send you written out. And
although they are written in such terms as not to apply to all
candidates for office, but to your special case and to your particular
election,