7 To speak my own mind, I did
not experience more joy on the day on which I was presented with the robe of a
senator, or when, as a new man, born in a far from influential state, I was
elected quaestor, or tribune, or praetor, than on those on which it was my
privilege, considering the insignificance of my ability as a speaker, to defend
a prisoner with success, to win a verdict in a cause before the Court of the
Hundred, or to give the support of my advocacy in the emperor’s presence to the
great freedmen themselves, or to ministers of the crown. On such occasions I
seem to rise above tribunates, praetorships, and consulships, and to possess
that which, if it be not of natural growth, is not bestowed by mandate, nor
comes through interest. Again, is there an accomplishment, the fame and glory
of which are to be compared with the distinction of the orator, who is an
illustrious man at Rome, not only with the busy class, intent on public
affairs, but even with people of leisure, and with the young, those at least
who have a right disposition and a worthy confidence in themselves? Whose name
does the father din into his children’s ears before that of the orator? Whom,
as he passes by, do the ignorant mob and the men with the tunic oftener speak
of by name and point out with the finger? Strangers too and foreigners, having
heard of him in their towns and colonies, as soon as they have arrived at Rome,
ask for him and are eager, as it were to recognise him.
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