the old Idæan shepherd had only injured Menelaus; our Roman Paris thought Agamemnon as proper an object of injury as Menelaus.[117] Next there is a certain tribune named C. Herennius, whom you, perhaps, do not even know--and yet you may know him, for he is of your tribe, and his father Sextus used to distribute money to your tribesmen--this person is trying to transfer P. Clodius to the plebs, and is actually proposing a law to authorize the whole people to vote in Clodius's affair in the _campus_.[118] I have given him a characteristic reception in the senate, but he is the thickest-skinned fellow in the world. Metellus is an excellent consul, and much attached to me, but he has lowered his influence by promulgating (though only for form's sake) an identical bill about Clodius. But the son of Aulus,[119] God in heaven! What a cowardly and spiritless fellow for a soldier! How well he deserves to be exposed, as he is, day after day to the abuse of Palicanus![120] Farther, an agrarian law has been promulgated by Flavius, a poor production enough, almost identical with that of Plotius. But meanwhile a genuine statesman is not to be found, even "in a dream." The man who could be one, my friend Pompey--for such he is, as I would have you know--defends his twopenny embroidered toga[121] by saying nothing. Crassus never risks his popularity by a word. The others you know without my telling you. They are such fools that they seem to expect that, though the Republic is lost, their fish-ponds will be safe. There is one man who does take some trouble, but rather, as it seems to me, with consistency and honesty, than with either prudence or ability--Cato. He has been for the last three months worrying those unhappy _publicani_, who were formerly devoted to him, and refuses to allow of an answer being given them by the senate. And so we are forced to suspend all decrees on other subjects until the _publicani_ have got their answer. For the same reason I suppose even the business of the foreign embassies will be postponed. You now understand in what stormy water we are: and as from what I have written to you in such strong terms you have a view also of what I have not written, come back to me, for it is time you did. And though the state of affairs to which I invite you is one to be avoided, yet let your value for me so far prevail, as to induce you to come there even in these vexatious circumstances. For the rest I will take care that due warning is given, and a notice put up in all places, to prevent you being entered on the census as absent; and to get put on the census just before the lustration is the mark of your true man of business.[122] So let me see you at the earliest possible moment. Farewell. 20 January in the Consulship of Q. Metellus and L. Afranius.