The seat of justice has been
publicly debauched. Resolutions are introduced against corruption, but no
law can be carried. The knights are alienated. The Senate has lost its
authority. The concord of the orders is gone, and the pillars of the
Commonwealth which I set up are overthrown. We have not a statesman, or
the shadow of one. My friend Pompey, who might have done something, sits
silent, admiring his fine clothes.[10] Crassus will say nothing to make
himself unpopular, and the rest are such idiots as to hope that although
the constitution fall they will save their own fish-ponds.[11] Cato, the
best man that we have, is more honest than wise. For these three months he
has been worrying the revenue farmers, and will not let the Senate satisfy
them." [12]
It was time for Cicero to look about him. The Catiline affair was not
forgotten. He might still be called to answer for the executions, and he
felt that he required some stronger support than an aristocracy, who would
learn nothing and seemed to be bent on destroying themselves. In letter
after letter he pours out his contempt for his friends "of the fish-
ponds," as he called them, who would neither mend their ways nor let
others mend them. He would not desert them altogether, but he provided for
contingencies. The tribunes had taken up the cause of Pompey's
legionaries.
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