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Power brings a man many luxuries, but a clean pair of hands is seldom among them.
So Crassus will pose the question: Are you for me or against me? and then I shall face the politician’s nightmare: the requirement to give a straight answer.”
Cato had that most luxurious prerogative of the very rich: little interest in money. He had inherited plenty and gave it away without even noticing.
“The trouble with Lucius,” he said, putting his feet up on the desk after his cousin had gone, “is that he thinks politics is a fight for justice. Politics is a profession.”
they might have been father and son, with their drawling voices, and the way they stood together so languidly, as if the world were theirs to own. I suppose this is what is called “breeding.” It had taken four hundred years of intermarriage between the finest families in Rome to produce those two villains—as thoroughbred as Arab bloodstock, and just as quick and headstrong and dangerous.
“Really, though, one has to wonder about Caesar. If a man would steal your wife, what wouldn’t he take from you?”
Cicero stopped in front of him and took his hands in both of his “—my old friend. I cannot thank you enough.” “For what? I merely listened to a bore, and then plied him with a little drink. It was hardly anything.” “On the contrary, the ability to listen to bores requires stamina, and such stamina is the essence of politics.
My impression was that his canvassing was proving effective, and that when it came to a vote the lex Figula would pass, for the majority were not corrupt. But simply because a measure is honest and sensible, there is no guarantee that it will be adopted; rather the opposite, in my experience.
“Well, then, you have only yourself to blame for depending on such a rabble in the first place! This is the problem with your demagoguery, Cicero—you may think you can control the mob, but the mob will always end up devouring you. Did you seriously believe you could beat men like Crassus and Catilina when it came to a public auction of principles?”
