And this piece of favor so completely won over Antonius,
that he was ready to second, like a hired player, whatever Cicero
said for the good of the country. And now, having made his
colleague tame and tractable, he could with greater courage attack
the conspirators. Therefore, in the senate, making an oration
against the law of the ten commissioners, he so confounded those
who proposed it, that they had nothing to reply.
For Cicero, it may be said, was the one man, above all others, who
made the Romans feel how great a charm eloquence lends to what is
good, and how invincible justice is if it be well presented. An
incident occurred in the theatre, during his consulship, which
showed what his speaking could do. Formerly the knights of Rome
were mingled in the theatre with the common people, and took their
places amongst them just as it happened; but when Marcus Otho
became praetor he distinguished them from the other citizens, and
appointed them special seats, which they still enjoy as their
place in the theatre. This the common people took as an indignity
done to them, and, therefore, when Otho appeared in the theatre
they hissed him; the knights, on the contrary, received him with
loud clapping.
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