But you had entirely devoted yourself to my principles; (for this is what you said;) you had been in the habit of coming to my house.  In truth, if you had done so, you would more have consulted your own character and your reputation for chastity.  But you did not do so, nor, if you had wished it, would Caius Curio have ever suffered you to do so.  You have said, that you retired in my favour from the contest for the augurship.  Oh the incredible audacity! oh the monstrous impudence of such an assertion!  For, at the time when Cnaeus Pompeius and Quintus Hortensius named me as augur, after I had been wished for as such by the whole college, (for it was not lawful for me to be put in nomination by more than two members of the college,) you were notoriously insolvent, nor did you think it possible for your safety to be secured by any other means than by the destruction of the republic.  But was it possible for you to stand for the augurship at a time when Curio was not in Italy? or even at the time when you were elected, could you have got the votes of one single tribe without the aid of Curio? whose intimate friends even were convicted of violence for having been too zealous in your favour.

III.  But I availed myself of your friendly assistance.  Of what assistance?  Although the instance which you cite I have myself at all times openly admitted.  I preferred confessing that I was under obligations to you, to letting myself appear to any foolish person not sufficiently grateful.  However, what was the kindness that you did me? not killing me at Brundusium?  Would you then have slain the man whom the conqueror himself, who conferred on you, as you used to boast, the chief rank among all his robbers, had desired to be safe, and had enjoined to go to Italy?  Grant that you could have slain him, is not this, O conscript fathers, such a kindness as is done by banditti, who are contented with being able to boast that they have granted their lives to all those men whose lives they have not taken? and if that were really a kindness, then these who slew that man by whom they themselves had been saved, and whom you yourself are in the habit of styling most illustrious men, would never have acquired such immortal glory.  But what sort of kindness is it, to have abstained from committing nefarious wickedness?  It is a case in which it ought not to appear so delightful to me not to have been killed by you, as miserable, that it should have been in your power to do such a thing with impunity.  However, grant that it was a kindness, since no greater kindness could be received from a robber, still in what point can you call me ungrateful?  Ought I not to complain of the ruin of the republic, lest I should appear ungrateful towards you?  But in that complaint, mournful indeed and miserable, but still unavoidable for a man of that rank in which the senate and people of Rome have placed me, what did I say that was insulting? that was otherwise than moderate? that was otherwise than friendly? and what