§15.1Mendacium neque dicebat neque pati poterat.
He neither told a lie nor could bear one.
itaque eius comitas non sine severitate erat neque gravitas sine facilitate, ut difficile esset intellectu, utrum eum amici magis vererentur an amarent.
Therefore, his affability was not without severity, nor his gravity without ease, so that it was difficult to understand whether his friends rather feared or loved him.
quidquid rogabatur, religiose promittebat, quod non liberales, sed leves arbitrabatur polliceri quod praestare non possent.
Whatever he was asked, he promised conscientiously, because he thought that to promise what they could not perform was the mark not of generous but of light-minded men.
§15.2idem in tenendo, quod semel annuisset, tanta erat cura, ut non mandatam, sed suam rem videretur agere.
Likewise, in keeping what he had once agreed to, his care was so great that he seemed to be managing not a commissioned business, but his own.
numquam suscepti negotii eum pertaesum est: suam enim existimationem in ea re agi putabat, qua nihil habebat carius.
He was never weary of an undertaking he had accepted; for he thought his own reputation was at stake in that matter, than which he held nothing dearer.
§15.3quo fiebat ut omnia Ciceronum, M. Catonis, Q. Hortensii, A. Torquati, multorum praeterea equitum Romanorum negotia procuraret.
Thus it happened that he managed all the business of the Ciceros, Marcus Cato, Quintus Hortensius, Aulus Torquatus, and besides of many Roman knights.
ex quo iudicari potest non inertia, sed iudicio fugisse rei publicae procurationem.
From this it can be judged that he had avoided the administration of the state not from indolence, but by deliberate judgment.