He had stood with six competitors. Of these it is only necessary to mention two, as by them only was Cicero's life affected, and as out of the six, only they seem to have come prominently forward during the canvassing. These were Catiline the conspirator, as we shall have to call him in dealing with his name in the next chapter, and Caius Antonius, one of the sons of Marc Antony, the great orator of the preceding age, and uncle of the Marc Antony with whom we are all so well acquainted, and with whom we shall have so much to do before we get to the end of this work. Cicero was so easily the first that it may be said of him that he walked over the course. Whether this was achieved by the Machiavellian arts which his brother Quintus taught in his treatise De Petitione Consulatus, or was attributable to his general popularity, may be a matter of doubt. As far as we can judge from the signs which remain to us of the public feeling of the period, it seems that he was at this time regarded with singular affection by his countrymen. He had robbed none, and had been cruel to no one. He had already abandoned the profit of provincial government--to which he was by custom entitled after the lapse of his year's duty as Prætor--in order that he might remain in Rome among the people. Though one of the Senate himself--and full of the glory of the Senate, as he had declared plainly enough in that passage from one of the Verrine orations which I have quoted--he had generally pleaded on the popular side. Such was his cleverness, that even when on the unpopular side--as he may be supposed to have been when defending Fonteius--he had given a popular aspect to the cause in hand. We cannot doubt, judging from the loud expression of the people's joy at his election, that he had made himself beloved But, nevertheless, he omitted none of those cares which it was expected that a candidate should take. He made his electioneering speech "in toga candida"--in a white robe, as candidates did, and were thence so called. It has not come down to us, nor do we regret it, judging from the extracts which have been collected from the notes which Asconius wrote upon it. It was full of personal abuse of Antony and Catiline, his competitors. Such was the practice of Rome at this time, as it was also with us not very long since. We shall have more than enough of such eloquence before we have done our task. When we come to the language in which Cicero spoke of Clodius, his enemy, of Piso and Gabinius, the Consuls who allowed him to be banished, and of Marc Antony, his last great opponent--the nephew of the man who was now his colleague--we shall have very much of it. It must again be pleaded that the foul abuse which fell from other lips has not been preserved and that Cicero, therefore, must not be supposed to have been more foul mouthed than his rivals. We can easily imagine that he was more bitter than others, because he had more power to throw into his