Three competitors disputed the consulship for 702, T. Annius Milo, P. Plautius Hypsæus, and Q. Cæcilius Metellus Scipio.[736] They rivalled each other in intrigue and corruption.[737] Pompey, especially since he had been reconciled to P. Clodius, treated Milo as an enemy, and, according to his habitual tactics, pretended to believe that he harboured designs against his life. Although he retarded the comitia, he favoured P. Hypsæus and Q. Scipio, who solicited the consulship, and Clodius, who, the same year, was a candidate for the prætorship. Milo had a great number of partisans; his largesses to the people and his spectacles seemed likely to ensure his election; and Pompey, in the way of whose views he stood, did all he could to prevent the Senate from naming an interrex to hold the comitia. He desired this important office for himself; but, obliged to give way before the resistance of Cato, he confined himself to preventing any election, and the year ended again without the nomination of consuls. CHAPTER VII. EVENTS OF THE YEAR 702. [Sidenote: Murder of Clodius.] I. Rome seemed to be given up only to the petty contentions of individuals; but, behind the men who stood in view, grave interests and violent passions were in agitation. The disease which undermines society unknown to it, reveals itself when facts, of no great importance in themselves, occur suddenly to produce an unforeseen crisis, to unveil dangers which were unperceived, and to show to all men that society on the brink of an abyss of which nobody had suspected the depth. Thus, by mere accidents of his life, Clodius seems to have been destined to cause the explosion of the elements of disorder which the Republic concealed in its bosom. He is caught in the house of Cæsar’s wife during a religious sacrifice, and this violation of the mysteries of the _Bona Dea_ leads to a fatal division in the first bodies of the state. His impeachment irritates the popular party; his acquittal exposes to the world the venality of the judges, and separates the order of the knights from that of the Senate. The animosity with which he is pursued makes him a chief of a formidable party, which sends Cicero into exile, makes Pompey tremble, and accelerates the elevation of Cæsar. His death is destined to awaken all the popular passions, and inspire the opposite faction with so many fears, that it will forget its rancours and jealousies to throw itself into the arms of Pompey, and all the people will be in arms from one end of Italy to the other.