he taught you to fly rather than to speak." Marcus Appius in a certain trial prefaced his speech with saying that his friend had prayed him to exhibit vigilance and judgment and fidelity: "Are you then," said Cicero, "so iron-hearted as to exhibit not one of such great qualities as your friend prayed you to do?" XXVII. Now the use of bitterish taunts against enemies or opposing advocates may be considered as belonging to the orator's business; but the attacking of any persons whom he fell in with, for the purpose of making them ridiculous, brought great odium upon him. I will record a few instances of this also. He called Marcus Aquinius,[213] Adrastus,[214] because he had two sons-in-law who were in exile. Lucius Cotta,[215] who held the office of censor, was very fond of wine, and it happened that Cicero during his canvass for the consulship was athirst, and as his friends stood around him while he was drinking, "You have good reason to be afraid," said he, "lest the censor should deal harshly with me for drinking water." Meeting Voconius,[216] who was conducting three very ugly daughters, he said aloud: "'Gainst Phoebus' will his children he begat." Marcus Gellius,[217] who was supposed not to be the son of free parents, was once reading some letters to the Senate with a clear and loud voice, when Cicero said, "Don't be surprised; he too is one of those who have practised their voices." When Faustus,[218] the son of Sulla who had been dictator in Rome and proscribed many to the death, having got into debt and squandered most of his substance, advertised his household stuff for sale, Cicero said that he liked this proscription better than his father's. XXVIII.[219] He thus became odious to many, and the partizans of Clodius combined against him on the following occasion. Clodius was a man of noble birth, young in years, but bold and impudent in his designs. Being in love with Pompeia, Cæsar's wife, he got into his house secretly by assuming the dress and the guise of a lute-player; for the women were celebrating in Cæsar's house those mysterious rites which the men were not allowed to see; and as there was no man there, Clodius being still a youth and not yet bearded hoped to slip through to Pompeia with the women. But as it was night when he got into a large house, he was perplexed by the passages; and as he was rambling about a female slave of Aurelia, Cæsar's mother, saw him and asked him his name. Being compelled to speak, he said that he was looking for a servant of Pompeia, named Abra, but the woman perceiving that it was not a female voice cried out and called the women together. They shut the doors and searching every place found Clodius, who had hid himself in the chamber of the girl with whom he came into the house. The affair being noised abroad Cæsar put away Pompeia, and a prosecution[220] for an offence against religion was instituted against Clodius.