In the next year (B.C. 67) we find Cicero elected to the prætorship, after at least two interruptions to the _comitia_, which, though not aimed at himself, gave him a foretaste of the political troubles to come a few years later. He is, however, at present simply annoyed at the inconvenience, not yet apprehensive of any harm to the constitution. The double postponement, indeed, had the effect of gratifying his vanity: for his own name was returned three times first of the list of eight. His prætorship (B.C. 66) passed without any startling event. The two somewhat meagre letters which remain belonging to this year tell us hardly anything. Still he began more or less to define his political position by advocating the _lex Manilia_, for putting the Mithridatic war into the hands of Pompey; and one of his most elaborate forensic speeches--that for Cluentius--was delivered in the course of the year: in which also his brother Quintus was elected to the ædileship. [Sidenote: B.C. 65-64. Preparations for the Consulship.] So far Cicero had risen steadily and without serious difficulty up the official ladder. But the stress was now to come. The old families seem not to have been so ready to oppose the rise of the _novus homo_ to the prætorship. It was the consulship on which they tried to keep a tight hand. Accordingly, immediately after the year of his prætorship, we find him anxiously looking out for support and inquiring who are likely to be his competitors. The interesting point in regard to this is his connexion with Catiline. In his speech in the senate delivered in the following year (_in toga candida_, B.C. 64) he denounced Catiline in the most violent language, accusing him of every conceivable crime; yet in B.C. 65 he not only contemplated being elected with him without any expression of disgust, but even considered whether he should not undertake his defence on some charge that was being brought against him--perhaps for his conduct during the Sullan proscriptions. To whitewash Catiline is a hopeless task; and it throws a lurid light upon the political and moral sentiments of the time to find Cicero even contemplating such a conjunction.