Tacitus tells us that it was with this object that Sulla had increased the number of Quaestors.[88] Cicero's hopes--his futile hopes of what an honest Senate might be made to do--still ran high, although at the very time in which he was elected Quaestor he was aware that the judges, then elected from the Senate, were so corrupt that their judgment could not be trusted.

Of this popular mode of filling the Senate he speaks afterward in his treatise De Legibus.

"From those who have acted as magistrates the Senate is composed--a measure altogether in the popular interest, as no one can now reach the highest rank"-- namely, the Senate--"except by the votes of the people, all power of selecting having been taken away from the Censors."[89] In his pleadings for P.Sextus he makes the same boast as to old times, not with absolute accuracy, as far as we can understand the old constitution, but with the same passionate ardor as to the body.
"Romans, when they could no longer endure the rule of kings, created annual magistrates, but after such fashion that the Council of the Senate was set over the Republic for its guidance.

Senators were chosen for that work by the entire people, and the entrance to that order was opened to the virtue and to the industry of the citizens at large."[90] When defending Cluentius, he expatiates on the glorious privileges of the Roman Senate.

"Its high place, its authority, its splendor at home, its name and fame abroad, the purple robe, the ivory chair, the appanage of office, the fasces, the army with its command, the government of the provinces!"[91] On that splendor "apud exteras gentes," he expatiates in one of his attacks upon Verres.[92] From all this will be seen Cicero's idea of the chamber into which he had made his way as soon as he had been chosen Quaestor.
In this matter, which was the pivot on which his whole life turned--the character, namely, of the Roman Senate--it cannot but be observed that he was wont to blow both hot and cold.