[45] “Do you see how gloomy that man looks? how dejected? He is out of spirits; he thinks he has no chance; he has laid down his arms.” Then a report gets abroad—“Do you know that he is thinking of a prosecution? He is seeking for evidence against his competitors; he is hunting for witnesses. I shall vote for some one else, as he knows that he has no chance.” The most intimate friends of such candidates as that are dispirited and disarmed, they abandon all anxiety in the matter,—they give up a business which is so manifestly hopeless, or else they reserve all their labour and influence to countenance their friend in the trial and prosecution which he is meditating.
22 And, besides all this, the candidate himself cannot devote his whole thoughts, and care, and attention, and diligence to his own election; for he has also in his mind the thoughts of his prosecution—a matter of no small importance, but in truth of the very greatest. For it is a very serious business to be preparing measures by which to deprive a man, especially one who is not powerless or without resources—of his rights as a citizen; one who is defended both by himself and by his friend,—yes, and perhaps also by strangers. For we all of us naturally hasten to save any one from danger; and, if we are not notoriously enemies to them, we tender, even to utter strangers, when menaced by danger affecting their station as citizens, the services and zeal which are strictly speaking due only to the causes of our friends.
22 And, besides all this, the candidate himself cannot devote his whole thoughts, and care, and attention, and diligence to his own election; for he has also in his mind the thoughts of his prosecution—a matter of no small importance, but in truth of the very greatest. For it is a very serious business to be preparing measures by which to deprive a man, especially one who is not powerless or without resources—of his rights as a citizen; one who is defended both by himself and by his friend,—yes, and perhaps also by strangers. For we all of us naturally hasten to save any one from danger; and, if we are not notoriously enemies to them, we tender, even to utter strangers, when menaced by danger affecting their station as citizens, the services and zeal which are strictly speaking due only to the causes of our friends.
Pro L. Murena. M. Tullius Cicero. Charles Duke Yonge (Translator). London. 1856.
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