r
designs, the fraud of this law, the plots which your Tribunes of the
people, popular as they think themselves, have contrived against the
Roman people? Shall I fear--I who have determined to be Consul after
that fashion in which alone a man may do so in dignity and freedom,
reaching to ask nothing for myself which any Tribune could object to
have given to me?"[170]

This was to the Senate, but he is bolder still when he addresses the
people. He begins by reminding them that it has always been the custom
of the great officers of state, who have enjoyed the right of having in
their houses the busts and images of their ancestors, in their first
speech to the people to join with thanks for the favors done to
themselves some records of the noble deeds done by their forefathers.
[171] He, however, could do nothing of the kind: he had no such right:
none in his family had achieved such dignity. To speak of himself might
seem too proud, but to be silent would be ungrateful. Therefore would he
restrain himself, but would still say something, so that he might
acknowledge what he had received. Then he would leave it for them to
judge whether he had deserved what they had done for him.

"It is long ago--almost beyond the memory of us now here--since you last
made a new man Consul.[172] That high office the nobles had reserved for
themselves, and defended it, as it were, with ramparts. You have secured
it for me, so that in future it shall be open to any who may be worthy
of it. Nor have you only made me a Consul, much as that is, but you have
done so in such a fashion that but few among the old nobles have been so
treated, and no new man--'novus ante me nemo.' I have, if you will think
of it, been the only new man who has stood for the Consulship in the
first year in which it was legal, and who has got it." Then he goes on
to remind them, in words which I have quoted before, that they had
elected him by their unanimous voices. All this, he says, had been very
grateful to him, but he had quite understood that it had been done that
he might labor on their behalf. That such labor was severe, he declares.
The Consulship itself must be defended. His period of Consulship to any
Consul must be a year of grave responsibility, but more so to him than
to any other. To him, should he be in doubt, the great nobles would give
no kind advice. To him, should he be overtasked, they would give no
assistance. But the first thing he would look for