It has been said that this was done because Pompey could help him to the Consulship.

To me it seems that he had already declared to himself that among leading men in Rome Pompey was the one to whom the Republic would look with the most security as a bulwark, and that on that account he had resolved to bind himself to Pompey in some political marriage.

Be that as it may, there was no tampering with democracy in the speech Pro Lege Manilia.

Of all the extant orations made by him before his Consulship, the attentive reader will sympathize the least with that of Fonteius.

After his scathing onslaught on Verres for provincial plunder, he defended the plunderer of the Gauls, and held up the suffering allies of Rome to ridicule as being hardly entitled to good government.