That the noble lords
were unscrupulous in removing persons whom they disliked they had shown in
a hundred instances, and Pompey naturally enough hesitated to trust
himself among them without security. He required the protection of office,
and he had sent forward one of his most distinguished officers, Metellus
Nepos, to prepare the way and demand the consulship for him. Metellus, to
strengthen his hands, had stood for the tribuneship; and, in spite of the
utmost efforts of the aristocracy, had been elected. It fell to Metellus
to be the first to give expression to the general indignation in a way
peculiarly wounding to the illustrious consul. Cicero imagined that the
world looked upon him as its saviour. In his own eyes he was another
Romulus, a second founder of Rome. The world, unfortunately, had formed an
entirely different estimate of him. The prisoners had been killed on the
5th of December. On the last day of the year it was usual for the outgoing
consuls to review the events of their term of office before the Senate;
and Cicero had prepared a speech in which he had gilded his own
performances with all his eloquence. Metellus commenced his tribunate with
forbidding Cicero to deliver his oration, and forbidding him on the
special ground that a man who had put Roman citizens to death without
allowing them a hearing did not himself deserve to be heard.
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