In B.C. 62, while the wife of Caesar was celebrating in the house of her husband, then Praetor and Pontifex Maximus, the rites of the Bona Dea, from which all male creatures were excluded, it was discovered that P. Clodius Pulcher, a profligate noble, whom we have seen inciting the army of Lucullus to insurrection, had found his way into the mansion disguised in woman's apparel, and, having been detected, had made his escape by the help of a female slave. The matter was laid before the Senate, and by them referred to the members of the Pontifical College, who passed a resolution that sacrilege had been committed. Caesar forthwith divorced his wife. Clodius was impeached and brought to trial. In defense he pleaded an alibi, offering to prove that he was at Interamna at the very time when the crime was said to have been committed; but Cicero came forward as a witness, and swore that he had met and spoken to Clodius in Rome on the day in question. In spite of this decisive testimony, and the evident guilt of the accused, the Judices pronounced him innocent by a majority of voices (B.C. 61). Clodius now vowed deadly vengeance against Cicero. To accomplish his purpose more readily, he determined to become a candidate for the Tribunate, but for this it was necessary, in the first place, that he should be adopted into a plebeian family by means of a special law. This, after protracted opposition, was at length accomplished through the interference of the Triumvirs, and he was elected Tribune for B.C. 58.