65
The law was proposed only a few days; it was never begun to be put in train to be carried; it was laid on the table in the senate. On the first of January, when we had summoned the senate to meet in the Capitol, nothing took precedence of it; and Quintus Metellus the praetor said, that what he was saying was by the command of Sulla; that Sulla did not wish such a motion to be brought forward respecting his case. From that time forward Caecilius applied himself to many measures for the advantage of the republic; he declared that he by his intercession would stop the agrarian law, which was in every part of it denounced and defeated by me. He resisted infamous attempts at corruption; he never threw any obstacles in the way of the authority of the senate. He behaved himself in his tribuneship in such a manner, that, laying aside all regard for his own domestic concerns, he thought of nothing for the future but the welfare of the republic.