of the people, all power of selecting having been taken away from the
Censors.[89] In his pleadings for P. Sextus he makes the same boast as
to old times, not with absolute accuracy, as far as we can understand
the old constitution, but with the same passionate ardor as to the
body. "Romans, when they could no longer endure the rule of kings,
created annual magistrates, but after such fashion that the Council of
the Senate was set over the Republic for its guidance. Senators were
chosen for that work by the entire people, and the entrance to that
order was opened to the virtue and to the industry of the citizens at
large."[90] When defending Cluentius, he expatiates on the glorious
privileges of the Roman Senate. "Its high place, its authority, its
splendor at home, its name and fame abroad, the purple robe, the ivory
chair, the appanage of office, the fasces, the army with its command,
the government of the provinces!"[91] On that splendor "apud exteras
gentes," he expatiates in one of his attacks upon Verres.[92] From all
this will be seen Cicero's idea of the chamber into which he had made
his way as soon as he had been chosen Quaestor.

In this matter, which was the pivot on which his whole life
turned--the character, namely, of the Roman Senate--it cannot but be
observed that he was wont to blow both hot and cold. It was his
nature to do so, not from any aptitude for deceit, but because he was
sanguine and vacillating--because he now aspired and now despaired. He
blew hot and cold in regard to the Senate, because at times he would
feel it to be what it was--composed, for the most part, of men who
were time-serving and corrupt, willing to sell themselves for a price
to any buyer; and then, again, at times he would think of the Senate
as endowed with all those privileges which he names, and would dream
that under his influence it would become what it should be--such a
Senate as he believed it to have been in its old palmy days. His