senate with the utmost earnestness and persistence, and have made a strong impression on the senate by my language as well as by my personal prestige. Pray write to me more frequently. [Footnote 64: P. Sestius was serving as proquæstor in Macedonia under Gaius Antonius. As tribune in B.C. 57 he worked for Cicero's recall, but was afterwards prosecuted _de vi_, and defended by Cicero.] [Footnote 65: Gaius Antonius, Cicero's colleague in the consulship. He had the province of Macedonia after the consulship, Cicero having voluntarily withdrawn in his favour to secure his support against Catiline. Scandal said that he had bargained to pay Cicero large sums from the profits of the province. He governed so corruptly and unsuccessfully that he was on his return condemned of _maiestas_.] XVI (A I, 12) [Sidenote: B.C. 61. Coss., M. Papius Piso, M. Valerius Messalla.] The letters of this year are much concerned with the sacrilege of P. Clodius, who, it was alleged, had been detected in disguise in the house of the Pontifex Maximus Iulius Cæsar, when his wife was celebrating the mysteries of the Bona Dea, from which males were excluded. His trial was made the occasion of bitter party struggles, and by giving evidence in contradiction of Clodius's alibi Cicero incurred his enmity, and eventually, therefore, his own exile. Quintus is proprætor in Asia, Cæsar in Spain. Pompey reached Rome early this year. The _ordo equester_ is much irritated with the senate on the question of the contracts for the collection of the Asiatic taxes. TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS) ROME, 1 JANUARY [Sidenote: B.C. 61, ÆT. 45]