credit. Men had heard of the danger, and therefore, says Sallust,[23]
"They conceived the idea of intrusting the consulship to Cicero. For
before that the nobles were envious, and thought that the consulship
would be polluted if it were conferred on a _novus homo_, however
distinguished. But when danger came, envy and pride had to give way."
He afterward declares that Cicero made a speech against Catiline most
brilliant, and at the same time useful to the Republic. This was
lukewarm praise, but coming from Sallust, who would have censured if
he could, it is as eloquent as any eulogy. There is extant a passage
attributed to Sallust full of virulent abuse of Cicero, but no one
now imagines that Sallust wrote it. It is called the Declamation of
Sallust against Cicero, and bears intrinsic evidence that it was
written in after years. It suited some one to forge pretended
invectives between Sallust and Cicero, and is chiefly noteworthy here
because it gives to Dio Cassius a foundation for the hardest of hard
words he said against the orator.[24]

Dio Cassius was a Greek who wrote in the reign of Alexander Severus,
more than two centuries and a half after the death of Cicero, and he
no doubt speaks evil enough of our hero. What was the special cause of
jealousy on his part cannot probably be now known, but the nature of
his hatred may be gathered from the passage in the note, which is so
foul-mouthed that it can be only inserted under the veil of his own
language.[25] Among other absurdities Dio Cassius says of Cicero that
in his latter days he put away a gay young wife, forty years younger
than himself, in order that he might enjoy without disturbance the
company of another lady who was nearly as much older than himself as
his wife was younger.

Now I ask, having brought forward so strong a testimony, not, I will