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

There is in each of the rivals the greatest honesty, the greatest worth; which I, if Servius will allow me, will place in equal and in the same panegyric. But he will not let me; he discusses the military question; he attacks the whole of his services as lieutenant; he thinks the consulship is an office requiring diligence and all this daily labour. “Have you been,” says he, “so many years with the army? you can never have been near the forum. Have you been away so long? and then, when after a long interval you arrive, will you contend in dignity with those who have made their abode in the forum?” First of all, as to that assiduity of ours, O Servius, you know not what disgust, what satiety, it sometimes causes men; it was, indeed, exceedingly advantageous for me myself that my influence was in the sight of all men; but I overcame the weariness of me by my own great labour; and you, perhaps, have done the same thing, but yet a regret at our absence would have been no injury to either of us.