1The candidacy of my friend Sextus Erucius keeps me anxious and restless. 1I am affected by concern, and the anxiety which I did not undergo for myself I suffer as if for a second self; 1and besides, my honour, my reputation, my standing are brought into jeopardy. 2It was I who obtained for Sextus the broad stripe from our Caesar, I who obtained the quaestorship; 2it is by my support that he has reached the right to stand for the tribunate, and unless he obtains it in the senate, I fear I may seem to have deceived Caesar. 3So I must strive that all may judge him to be such as the emperor believed him to be on my word.
3Even if this reason did not spur my zeal, I should still wish to help a young man most upright, most serious, most learned, in short most worthy of every praise, and indeed together with his whole house. 4For his father is Erucius Clarus, a man upright, old-fashioned, eloquent and practised in pleading cases, which he defends with the utmost good faith, equal firmness and no less modesty. 4He has as his uncle Gaius Septicius, than whom I have known nothing more truthful, more straightforward, more candid, more loyal. 5They all love me in rivalry, and yet equally; now in one person I can repay my gratitude to them all.
5So I canvass my friends, I beg, I solicit, I go round houses and public meeting places, and I test by entreaty how much I can achieve by authority or by influence, and I implore you to think it worth while to take on some share of my burden. 6I will return the favour if you ask it back; I will return it even if you do not. 6You are loved, courted, attended: only show that you wish it, and there will be no lack of those who desire what you wish. 6Farewell.