So Cicero, as he looked back afterwards, described the struggle in his own mind. His friends had then rallied; Caesar was far away; and he could tell his own story, and could pile his invectives on those who had injured him. His matchless literary power has given him exclusive command over the history of his time. His enemies' characters have been accepted from his pen as correct portraits. If we allow his description of Clodius and the two consuls to be true to the facts, what harder condemnation can be pronounced against a political condition in which such men as these could be raised to the first position in the State?[13] Dion says that Cicero's resolution to yield did not wholly proceed from his own prudence, but was assisted by advice from Cato and Hortensius the orator. Anyway, the blow fell, and he went down before the stroke. His immortal consulship, in praise of which he had written a poem, brought after it the swift retribution which Caesar had foretold. When the vote proposed by Clodius was carried, he fled to Sicily, with a tacit confession that he dared not abide his trial, which would immediately have followed. Sentence was pronounced upon him in his absence. His property was confiscated. His houses in town and country were razed. The site of his palace in Rome was dedicated to the Goddess of Liberty, and he himself was exiled. He was forbidden to reside within four hundred miles of Rome, with a threat of death if he returned; and he retired to Macedonia, to pour out his sorrows and his resentments in lamentations unworthy of a woman. [1] See a list of the Leges Juliae in the 48th Book of the Corpus Juris Civilis. [2] _To Atticus_, ii. 16. [3] "Tenemur undique, neque jam, quo minus serviamus, recusamus, sed mortem et ejectionem quasi majora timemus, quae multo sunt minora. Atque hic status, qui una voce omnium gemitur neque verbo cujusdam sublevatur."--_To Atticus_, ii. 18. [4] "In concionem ascendit et Pompeium privatus dictatorem appellavit. Propius nihil est factum quam ut occideretur."--Cicero, _Ad Quintum Fratrem_, i. 2. [5] _To Athens_, ii, 21. In this comparison Cicero betrays his naïve conviction that Pompey was indebted to him and to his praises for his reputation. Here, as always, Cicero was himself the centre round which all else revolved or ought to revolve. [6] _Ib_. [7] To Atticus, ii. 22. [8] "Jam familiariter cum illo etiam cavillor ac jocor."--_To Atticus_, ii. 1. [9] _Oratio in L. Pisonem_. [10] He seems to have even thought of suicide.--_To Atticus_, iii. 9. [11] Abridged from the _Oratio pro P. Sextio_. [12] _Oratio post reditum ad Quirites_.