The new consuls were not, or did not consider themselves, so bound, and Lentulus having brought the subject forward, the senate early passed a resolution that Cicero's recall was to take precedence of all other business. In accordance with the resolution of the senate, a law was proposed by the consul Lentulus in the _comitia centuriata_, and probably one by Milo to the _tributa_. But Clodius, though no longer armed with the tribuneship, was not yet beaten. He obtained the aid of some gladiators belonging to his brother Appius, and more than once interrupted and dispersed an assembly of the _comitia_. In the riots thus occasioned blood was shed on both sides, and Cicero's brother Quintus on one occasion nearly lost his life. This was the beginning of the series of violent contests between Clodius and Milo, only ended by the murder of the former on the Appian road in B.C. 52. But Clodius was a candidate for the ædileship in this year (B.C. 57), and could be barred from that office legally by a prosecution for _vis_, of which Milo gave notice against him. It was, perhaps, a desire to avoid this, as much as fear of Milo's counter exhibition of violence, that at length caused him to relax in his opposition, or at any rate to abstain from violently interrupting the _comitia_. Accordingly, on the 4th of August, the law proposed by both consuls, and supported by Pompey, was passed unanimously by the centuries. Cicero, we must presume, had received trustworthy information that this was to be the case (shewing that some understanding had been come to with Clodius, or there would have been no certainty of his not violently dispersing the _comitia_ again), for on that same day he set sail from Dyrrachium and landed at Brundisium on the 5th. His triumphant return to Rome is described in the eighty-ninth letter of this collection. For Pompey's share in securing it he expressed, and seems really to have felt, an exaggerated gratitude, which still influenced him in the unhappy months of B.C. 49, when he was hesitating as to joining him beyond seas in the civil war.