After his departure, the dissolute Clodius, who had become tribune, caused a law to be passed, denouncing Cicero in violent terms, and forbidding all persons, on pain of death, to harbor or receive him. Immediately after, his houses, both in the city and country, were given up to plunder; the marble columns of his dwelling on the Palatine hill were carried away by one of the consuls, and the rich furniture of his Tusculum villa, by another. Even the ornamental trees of his plantations were taken up and transplanted to one of his neighbor’s grounds. To make the loss of his house in Rome irretrievable, Clodius caused the space to be consecrated to the service of religion, and a temple to be built upon it, dedicated to the goddess of liberty! Nor did the vengeance of Cicero’s enemies stop here. Clodius pursued his wife and children with the same fury, and made several attempts to gain access to his son, then six years old, with the intention of putting him to death. But the child was carefully guarded, and finally removed from the reach of his malice. Terentia took sanctuary in the temple of Vesta, but she was dragged forcibly out, and insolently examined as to the concealment of her husband’s property. Being a woman of singular spirit, however, she bore these indignities with masculine courage. The desolation of Cicero’s fortunes at home, and the misery which he suffered abroad, in being deprived of everything that was dear to him, soon made him repent his flight. His suffering was increased on reaching Sicily, for there he found his former friends afraid to receive him, in consequence of the decree of banishment which had been passed at Rome, and which forbade him to remain within four hundred miles of the city. He therefore found it necessary to leave Sicily, and after various changes of opinion, he resolved to proceed to Thessalonica, in Macedonia. Here he took up his residence with his friend Plaucius, who treated him with the utmost kindness. Cicero was so dejected by his misfortunes, that he shut himself up in his apartments, and refused to see all company. When his brother, Quintus, was on his way from Asia to Rome, Cicero felt incapable of supporting an interview, and did not see him, so deeply were his feelings affected. At the same time, his letters to his friends were full of regret, complaint and despondency. It is obvious that, in this period of trial, he displayed great weakness of character, though it is probable that his affectionate disposition—his fondness for his children, and love of his friends—rendered separation from them an evil almost worse than death. It would seem, also, that he had so long enjoyed the homage paid to his talents, had so long lived in the blaze of popular favor, that his present exile seemed like being deprived of the very light of heaven.