fasces, and others who had come to attend and take leave of him.

LXXII. He always treated his friends with such kindness and good-nature,
that when Caius Oppius, in travelling with him through a forest, was
suddenly taken ill, he resigned to him the only place there was to
shelter them at night, and lay upon the ground in the open air. When he
had placed himself at the head of affairs, he advanced some of his
faithful adherents, though of mean extraction, to the highest offices;
and when he was censured for this partiality, he openly said, "Had I been
assisted by robbers and cut-throats in the defence of my honour, I should
have made them the same recompense."

(44) LXXIII. The resentment he entertained against any one was never so
implacable that he did not very willingly renounce it when opportunity
offered. Although Caius Memmius had published some extremely virulent
speeches against him, and he had answered him with equal acrimony, yet he
afterwards assisted him with his vote and interest, when he stood
candidate for the consulship. When C. Calvus, after publishing some
scandalous epigrams upon him, endeavoured to effect a reconciliation by
the intercession of friends, he wrote to him, of his own accord, the
first letter. And when Valerius Catullus, who had, as he himself
observed, fixed such a stain upon his character in his verses upon
Mamurra as never could be obliterated, he begged his pardon, invited him
to supper the same day; and continued to take up his lodging with his
father occasionally, as he had been accustomed to do.

LXXIV. His temper was also naturally averse to severity in retaliation.
After he had captured the pirates, by whom he had been taken, having
sworn that he would crucify them, he did so indeed; but he first ordered
their throats to be cut [84]. He could never bear the thought of doing