1His lot was the one which all of us your friends wished for you, the administration of justice; 1in which the importance of the business wins glory, and the dispensing of equity wins favour; 1in this lot a wise praetor, such as he was, avoids giving offence by the impartiality of his decisions, and gains goodwill by the mildness of his hearings. 1An excellent province, and well suited to the consulship, in which praise for fairness, integrity and approachability is crowned at the end by the pleasure of games. 42What of your lot? 42Gloomy and harsh: the court for embezzlement, on one side full of tears and mourning, on the other full of accusers and informers; 42jurors to be compelled against their wishes and kept against their will; 42a clerk condemned, the whole order estranged; 42Sulla's grants censured, many brave men and almost a whole section of the citizen body offended; 42damages severely assessed; 42the man who is pleased forgets, the man who is aggrieved remembers.
42Finally, you were unwilling to go to a province. 42I cannot criticise in you what I approved in myself both as praetor and as consul. 42But still, Murena's province brought him much goodwill together with the highest reputation. 42On setting out he held a levy in Umbria; 42the state gave him the opportunity to be generous, and by using it he attached to himself many tribes which are made up of the towns of Umbria. 42And he himself in Gaul, by his fairness and diligence, saw to it that our men recovered debts already given up as lost. 42You meanwhile, of course, were at hand for your friends in Rome; 42I admit it; 42but still, consider this: the zeal of some friends tends to diminish towards those by whom they see provinces disdained.