Enmities in abundance gave him plenty of employment, and he never permitted them to lie dormant; nor was it easy to tell whether the nobility laboured harder to keep him down, or he to oppress the nobility. His temper, no doubt, was austere, his language bitter and unboundedly free, but his mind was never conquered by his passions, his integrity was inflexible, and he looked with contempt on popularity and riches. In spare diet, in enduring toil and danger, his body and mind were like iron; so that even old age, which brings all things to dissolution, did not break his vigour. In his eighty-sixth year he stood a trial, pleaded his own cause, and published his speech; and in his ninetieth year, he brought Servius Galba to trial, before the people. 41. On this occasion, when he was a candidate for censorship, as in all his previous career, the nobility endeavoured to crush him. All the candidates, likewise, except Lucius Flaccus, who had been his colleague in the consulship, combined to disappoint him of the office, not merely with a view to their own success, in preference to him, or because they felt indignant at the idea of seeing a man of no family censor, but because from one who had received offence from most of them, and who wished to retaliate, they anticipated a severe censorship, that would endanger the reputations of many. For, even while soliciting, he uttered frequent menaces, and upbraided them with using their interest against him, because they dreaded an impartial and courageous execution of the duty of censor; at the same time, giving his interest to Lucius Valerius. He said, that “he was the only colleague, in conjunction with whom he could correct modern profligacy, and re-establish the ancient morals.” People were so inflamed by such discourses, that, in spite of the opposition made by the nobility, they not only made Marcus Porcius censor, but gave him for his colleague Lucius Valerius Flaccus. Immediately after the election of censors, the consuls and prætors went abroad to their provinces, except Quintus Nævius, who was detained from going to Sardinia, for no less than four months, by inquisitions concerning poisonings, a great part of which he held out of the city, in the corporate towns and villages; for that method was judged the more eligible. If we are to credit Valerius Antias, he condemned about two thousand men, Lucius Postumius, the prætor, to whose lot the province of Tarentum had fallen, punished numerous conspiracies of the peasants, and, with great care, finished the remainder of the inquiries concerning the Bacchanalians. Many of these, who had not appeared on being summoned, or had deserted their bail, were then lurking in that part of Italy; some of them he sentenced to punishment, and others he sent under a guard to the senate at Rome, where they were all committed to prison by Publius Cornelius.