M. Tullius Cicero, For Lucius Murena
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

Let us, therefore, give up saying anything about birth, the dignity of which is great in both the candidates; let us look at the other points. He stood for the quaestorship at the same time with me, and I was appointed first. We need not answer every point; for it cannot escape the observation of any one of you, when many men are appointed equal in dignity, but only one can obtain the first place, that the order of the dignity and of the declaration of it are not the same, because the declaration has degrees, but the dignity of all is usually the same. But the quaestorship of each was, given them by almost an equal decision of the lots: the one had by the Titian law a quiet and orderly province; you had that, one of Ostia, at the name of which, when the quaestors distribute the provinces by lot, a shout, is raised,—a province not so much pleasant and illustrious as troublesome and vexatious. The name of each was together in the quaestorship. For the drawing of the lots gave you no field on which your virtue could display itself and make itself known.