1And since I have shown, judges, that Murena and Sulpicius had equal standing for a candidacy for the consulship but unequal fortune in their provincial business, I shall now say more openly in what respect my friend Servius was inferior, and I shall say in your hearing, now that the time is lost, what I often said to him alone when the matter was still open. 1That you did not know how to stand for the consulship, Servius, I very often told you; 1and in the very things which I saw you doing and saying with a great and brave spirit, I used to tell you that you seemed to me more a brave prosecutor than a wise candidate.
1First, the terrors and threats of prosecution which you used to employ every day are the mark of a brave man, but they both turn the people's opinion away from the hope of your success and weaken the zeal of your friends. 1Somehow this always happens — and it has been noticed not in one or two cases but now in several — as soon as a candidate has been seen to be contemplating a prosecution, he seems to have given up hope of the office. 44What then? 44do I disapprove of pursuing a wrong one has suffered? 44On the contrary, I strongly approve; 44but there is one time for standing for office and another for prosecuting.
44I want a candidate, especially for the consulship, to be escorted into the forum and the Campus with great hope, great spirit and great numbers. 44I do not like a candidate's gathering of evidence, the forerunner of defeat; nor the collecting of witnesses rather than supporters, nor threats rather than flattery, nor serving of summonses rather than the round of greetings, especially since, by this new custom, almost everyone now runs round to the houses of all the candidates and guesses from their faces how much spirit and how many resources each seems to have. 45'Do you see him, gloomy and downcast? 45he is beaten, he has lost heart, he has thrown down his spears.' 45This rumour creeps about.
45'Do you know that he is planning a prosecution, investigating his rivals, looking for witnesses? 45Back someone else now, since he himself has given up hope.' 45By rumours of this kind the closest friends of candidates are weakened and lay aside their zeal; 45either they give the matter up as a foregone conclusion or they reserve their effort and influence for the trial and the prosecution.