But of the candidates for magistracies every man felt himself in a difficult position, being afraid to give bribes himself, and being afraid that he should lose the office if another did it.  Accordingly it was agreed among them that they should come together to one place, and each lay down one hundred and twenty-five thousand drachmae of silver, and all should then seek the office in a right and just way, and that he who broke the terms and employed bribery, should lose his money.  Having agreed to these terms they chose Cato as depositary and umpire and witness, and bringing the money, they offered to place it with him; and they had the terms of the agreement drawn up before him, but Cato took sureties instead of the money, and would not receive the money itself.  When the day for the election came, Cato taking his place by the presiding tribune and watching the vote, discovered that one of those who had entered into the engagement, was playing foul, and he ordered him to pay the money to the rest.  But they, commending his uprightness and admiring it, waived the penalty, considering that they had sufficient satisfaction from the wrong-doer; but Cato offended all the rest and got very great odium from this, it being as if he assumed to himself the power of the Senate and of the courts of justice and of the magistrates.  For the opinion and the credit of no one virtue makes people more envious than that of justice,[727] because both aepower and credit among the many follow it chiefly.  For people do not merely honour the just, as they do the brave, nor do they admire them, as they do the wise, but they even love the just, and have confidence in them and give them credit.  But as to the brave and wise, they fear the one, and give no credit to the other; and besides this, they think that the brave and the wise excel by nature rather than by their own will; and with respect to courage and wisdom, they consider the one to be a certain sharpness, and the other a firmness of soul; but inasmuch as any man who chooses, has it in his power to be just, they have most abhorrence of injustice as badness that is without excuse.

XLV.  Wherefore all the great were enemies of Cato, as being reproved by his conduct:  and as Pompeius viewed Cato’s reputation even as a nullification of his own power, he was continually setting persons on to abuse him, among whom Clodius also was one, the demagogue, who had again insensibly attached himself to Pompeius, and was crying out against Cato on the ground that he had appropriated to his own purposes much money in Cyprus, and was hostile to Pompeius because Pompeius had rejected a marriage with Cato’s daughter.  Cato replied that he had brought to the city from Cyprus, without the aid of a single horse or soldier, more money than Pompeius had brought back from so many wars and triumphs after disturbing the habitable world, and that he never chose Pompeius to make a marriage alliance with, not because he considered Pompeius unworthy, but because