section_path: Consulship
section_name: Consulship
paragraph_text: Consulship
  
  Cicero, seizing the opportunity offered by optimate fear of reform, was elected consul for the year 63 BC; he was elected with the support of every unit of the centuriate assembly, rival members of the post-Sullan establishment, and the leaders of municipalities throughout post-Social War Italy. His co-consul for the year, Gaius Antonius Hybrida, played a minor role.
  
  He began his consular year by opposing a land bill proposed by a plebeian tribune which would have appointed commissioners with semi-permanent authority over land reform. Cicero was also active in the courts, defending Gaius Rabirius from accusations of participating in the unlawful killing of plebeian tribune Lucius Appuleius Saturninus in 100 BC. The prosecution occurred before the comita centuriata and threatened to reopen conflict between the Marian and Sullan factions at Rome. Cicero defended the use of force as being authorised by a senatus consultum ultimum, which would prove similar to his own use of force under such conditions.