Greece -- Biography -- Early works to 1800; Rome -- Biography -- Early works to 1800
XXXIII. Clodius, after driving out Cicero, burnt his villas, and burnt
his house, and built on the ground a temple to Liberty: the rest of
Cicero's property[238] he offered for sale, and announced it daily, but
nobody would buy. In consequence of these measures being formidable to
the aristocratical party, and dragging along with him the people, who
were let loose to great violence and daring, he made an attack on
Pompeius, ripping up some of the things that were settled by him in his
military command. By which Pompeius losing some of his reputation blamed
himself for giving up Cicero; and changing again he used every effort in
conjunction with Cicero's friends to effect his return. As Clodius
resisted this, the Senate resolved to ratify nothing in the mean time
and to do no public business, unless Cicero was restored. When
Lentulus[239] was consul, and the disorder went on increasing so that
tribunes were wounded in the Forum, and Quintus the brother of Cicero
only escaped by lying among the bodies as if he were dead, the people
began to undergo a change of opinion, and one of the tribunes, Annius
Milo, was the first to venture to bring Clodius to trial for violence,
and many sided with Pompeius both from among the people and the
neighbouring cities. Coming forward with them and driving Clodius from
the Forum, he called the citizens to the vote: and it is said that the
people never confirmed any measure with so much unanimity. The Senate
vying with the people passed a decree in honour of those cities which
had served Cicero in his exile, and for the restoration[240] at the
public expense of his house and villas, which Clodius had destroyed.
Cicero was restored in the sixteenth month[241] after his exile, and so
great was the joy of the cities and the zeal of all men to meet him,
that what was afterwards said by Cicero fell short of the truth: for he
said that Italy bore him on her shoulders and carried him into Rome. On
which occasion Crassus also, who was his enemy before his exile, readily
met him, and was reconciled to him, to please his son Publius, as he
said, who was an admirer of Cicero.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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