He himself has asserted that he took none, and all the evidence that we have goes to show that he spoke the truth.

Had he taken money, even as a loan, we should have heard of it from nearer witnesses than Aulus Gellius, if, as Aulus Gellius tells us, it had become known at the time.

But because he tells his friend that he has borrowed money for the purpose, he is supposed to have borrowed it in a disgraceful manner! It will be found that all the stones most injurious to Cicero's reputation have been produced in the same manner.

His own words have been misinterpreted--either the purport of them, if spoken in earnest, or their bearing, if spoken in joke--and then accusations have been founded on them.[218] Another charge of dishonest practice was about this time made against Cicero without a grain of evidence, though indeed the accusations so made, and insisted upon, apparently from a feeling that Cicero cannot surely have been altogether clean when all others were so dirty, are too numerous to receive from each reader's judgment that indignant denial to which each is entitled.

The biographer cannot but fear that when so much mud has been thrown some will stick, and therefore almost hesitates to tell of the mud, believing that no stain of this kind has been in truth deserved.
It seems that Antony, Cicero's colleague in the Consulship, who became Proconsul in Macedonia, had undertaken to pay some money to Cicero.