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65 B.C.] to say "that, so far as he was concerned, you might have had what you wished, if he had been asked by you and asked with earnestness and insistence." Nearly a year before the actual election there commenced the process of preliminary canvassing, prensatio or "hand-shaking," as it was called. It was a great point for the candidate to be able to address each voter by his name, and to aid him in this he had specially trained slaves, whose business it was to make themselves acquainted with the faces of the citizens and to whisper the name of each in his master's ear as he approached him. "O fie! for shame, Cato!" exclaims Cicero, as he banters the precisian statesman who is trying to upset the election of Murena, "is it possible that you can do such a thing? are you not deceiving? are you not using your slave's memory to act a lie to your fellow-citizens? is this consistent with principle? can such a practice bear to be weighed in your philosophic scales?"

As "nothing succeeds like success," it is important for a candidate to produce the impression that he is assured of overwhelming support. He must lose no opportunity of advertising his strength, and for this purpose must collect an imposing array of "followers." To take part in such a following is an attention which the humblest can offer, and on that ground Cicero defends the practice against Cato's strictures. "'What need is there,' says Cato, 'for