1And first I shall reply about my duty to Cato, who directs his life by a fixed rule of reason and weighs most carefully the balance of every duty. 1Cato says that it was not right for me, being consul and the author of the law on electoral bribery, and having conducted my consulship so strictly, to touch the case of Murena. 1His criticism moves me deeply, so that I wish to justify my action not only to you, judges, to whom I owe most, but also to Cato himself, a man of the greatest gravity and integrity. 1By whom, pray, Cato, is it fairer that a consul be defended than by a consul?
1Who in public life can or ought to be more closely bound to me than the man to whom the state, upheld by my great labours and dangers, is now being handed over by me to sustain? 1But if, in suits for the recovery of things transferable by formal sale, the man who bound himself by the contract ought to bear the risk of the trial, then surely it is even more right that in the trial of a consul-elect the consul who declared him consul should above all be the guarantor of the Roman people's gift and the defender against his danger. 4And if, as is customary in some states, an advocate were appointed for this case at public expense, the man who would above all be given as defender to one endowed with the highest office would be one who, holding the same office, would bring to the speaking no less authority than ability.
4But if those who are already sailing into harbour from the open sea are accustomed to instruct those putting out from harbour with the greatest zeal about the nature of storms, pirates and places, since nature brings it about that we favour those who are entering on the same dangers we have passed through, in what frame of mind, pray, ought I to be, now almost in sight of land after a great tossing, towards this man who, I see, must face the greatest storms of the state? 4Therefore, if it is the mark of a good consul not only to see what is being done but also to foresee what is going to be, I shall show in another place how much it matters to the common safety that there be two consuls in the state on the first of January.
5If this is so, it was not so much duty that ought to have called me to defend the fortunes of a friend as the state that ought to have called a consul to defend the common safety.