Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 19, 2025
The once notorious Milo, who had been in exile since his trial for the murder of Clodius, privately joined him; and together they raised a band of gladiators in Campania, professing to have a commission from Pompey. Milo was killed. Caelius fled to Thurii, where he tried to seduce Caesar's garrison, and was put to death for his treachery. The familiar actors in the drama were beginning to drop.
But as it speedily became plain that Caesar was very far from intending to be the testamentary executor of Catilina, and that the utmost which debtors might expect from him was some alleviations of payment and modifications of procedure, indignation found loud vent in the inquiry. For whom then had the popular party conquered, if not for the people? Caelius and Milo
Caelius was triumphantly acquitted; and it is a proof that the young man was not wholly graceless, that he rose afterwards to high public office, and never forgot his obligations to his eloquent counsel, to whom he continued a stanch friend. He must have had good abilities, for he was honoured with frequent letters from Cicero when the latter was governor of Cilicia.
In return, I name Demosthenes, Aeschines, Hyperides,18 and many others, in opposition to Lysias; while I confront Cato and the Gracchi with Caesar, Pollio,19 Caelius,20 but, above all, Cicero, whose longest speech is generally considered his best. Why, no doubt about it, in good compositions, as in everything else that is valuable, the more there is of them, the better.
To Marcus Caelius Rufus Asia, B.C. 50 Nothing could have been more apt or judicious than your management of the application to the senate for a public thanksgiving to me. The arrangement of the matter has been just what I desired; not only has it been passed through quickly, but Hirrus, your rival and mine, associated himself with Cato's unbounded praise of my achievements.
Our friend Caelius Rufus was elected curule aedile while he was in correspondence with Cicero, and his letters give us a good idea of the condition of the mind of an ambitious young man who is bent on making the most of himself.
Cicero does not tell us whether he himself gave Caelius lessons in rhetoric, or whether he sent him to a professional teacher; he had himself written a treatise on a part of the subject the de Inventione of 80 B.C., the earliest of all his prose works and was therefore quite able to give the necessary instruction if he found time to do so.
It was a strange story, the case for the prosecution, especially as regarded the alleged attempt to poison Clodia. The poison was given to a friend of Caelius, he was to give it to some slaves of Clodia whom he was to meet at certain baths frequented by her, and they were in some way to administer it.
This may be trustworthy, although the derivation of the name of the Caelian Mount from this Caelius is evidently a philological invention, and even the addition that this Mastarna became king in Rome under the name of Servius Tullius is certainly nothing but an improbable conjecture of the archaeologists who busied themselves with legendary parallels.
Caelius' letters give us a chance of seeing what that life of the Forum really was which so fascinated the young men of the day, and some of the old, such as Cicero himself. We can see these children playing on the very edge of the crater, like the French noblesse before the Revolution. In both cases there was a semi-consciousness that the eruption was not far off, but they went on playing.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking