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Coss., from V. Kal, Mart., Cn. This year again, owing to the riots in the previous year excited by Clodius to prevent the election of Milo, began with a series of interregna lasting nearly three months, January, February, and the intercalary month. On the 17th of January Clodius was killed near Bovillæ by Milo's servants, and by his order.
We at once think of the commonplace from Juvenal: "Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes." But Rome, without remonstrating, put up with any absurdity of that kind. Sextius and Milo and others had been joined together in opposing the election of Clodius as Ædile, and had probably met violence with violence.
Milo, having heard that his enemy was there concealed thinking that he would be greatly relieved in his career by the death of such a foe, and that the risk should be run though the consequences might be grave caused Clodius to be dragged out from the tavern and slaughtered. On what grounds Asconius has attributed these probable thoughts to Milo we do not know.
Cicero's house on the Palatine Hill had been pulled down and the area dedicated so at least Clodius alleged to the Goddess of Liberty. If this was true, it was sacred forever; it could not be restored. The question was, Was it true? This question was referred to the Pontiffs as judges of such matters. Cicero argued the case before them, and they pronounced in his favor.
But not only had he powerful backers, but his opponents also, by proposing an innovation in the manner of selecting the jurors for trying him, had managed to give a spurious political importance to the case. Clodius was acquitted and went to his province, but returned in B.C. 60, apparently prepared for a change of parties. Cicero and he had quarrelled over the trial.
XXXIV. To these causes, in themselves so weighty, there was added another that, most of all, ruined the measures of Lucullus; and this was Publius Clodius, a violent man, and full of arrogance and audacity. He was the brother of the wife of Lucullus, a woman of most dissolute habits, whom he was also accused of debauching.
I am always very anxious to get your letters, in which I beg you not to be afraid of your minuteness boring me, or your plain speaking giving me pain. 4 September. He was a nephew of P. Clodius.
When Cicero began to address the judges, the partisans of Clodius could not be induced to abstain from riot even by fear of the soldiery; so that he was unable to speak with his accustomed firmness." Such is the account as given by Asconius, who goes on to tell us that out of the fifty-one judges thirty-eight condemned Milo and only thirteen were for acquitting him.
There is no reason to suppose that Cicero had recourse to it in any unusual degree; but employ it he did, and most unscrupulously. It was not only private character that he attacked, as in the case of Antony and Clodius, but even personal defects or peculiarities were made the subject of bitter ridicule.
Clodius, though no longer in office, was still the idol of the mob; and two of the tribunes, who were at first well inclined to Cicero, had been gained over by him. As early as possible, on the first day of the new year, Lentulus Spinther brought Cicero's case before the Senate.
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