The condition of affairs in Rome during Cæsar’s absence in Gaul was indeed such as to prove the necessity of some radical change in the system of the Commonwealth. All was confusion and violence. Clodius, a profligate relic of the Catilinarian party, having been elected to the tribuneship B. C. 58, procured the banishment of Cicero for his conduct in the affair of the conspiracy. In the following year, however, Clodius having in the meantime made himself generally odious, Cicero was recalled. Pompey and Crassus were elected consuls for the year B. C. 55. Mindful of their connection with Cæsar, who was of course in constant correspondence with them, they procured a prolongation of his command over the Gauls for a second period of five years; at the same time obtaining for themselves――Pompey, the government of Spain for five years; and Crassus that of Syria and adjacent countries for a similar period. In B. C. 55, Crassus set out for the scene of his command, where, soon afterwards, he perished in a fruitless expedition against the Parthians; Pompey remained at home, governing Spain by deputies. During several subsequent years, Rome was in a state of anarchy and misrule――the streets perambulated by armed mobs, partisans on the one hand of Clodius, and on the other of a powerful citizen called Milo, between whom a feud was carried on, as desperate and bloody as any that ever distracted a European town in the middle ages. In one of the numerous scuffles which took place between the contending parties, Clodius was killed; and taking advantage of the opportunity, the tottering government asserted its rights by bringing Milo to trial, and procuring his banishment.