But a little time before, he even asked me what need I had of his assistance? why I had not resisted my enemies with my own resources? Just as if not only I who had often been of assistance to many others, but as if any one were ever in so wholly desperate a condition as to consider himself not only safer if he had that man for a protector but more ready for the struggle if he had him only for an advocate or seconder. [19] Was I, forsooth, anxious to lean on the counsel or protection of that piece of senseless cattle, of that bit of rotten flesh? was I likely to seek for any support or ornament for myself from that contemptible carcass? I suppose I was looking for a consul, I say, but one (that I was not likely to find in that hog) who might uphold the cause of the republic with his dignity and wisdom, not one who like a stock or like a trunk of a tree, if he only stood upright, might maintain the title of consul. For as the whole of my cause was the cause of a consul and of the senate, I had need of the assistance of the consul and senate; one of which sources of aid was even turned by you when you were consuls to my injury; the other was entirely suspended, if not abolished in the republic.