Cæsar attempted also to conciliate Cicero by offering him a staff appointment; on this being refused, as it was desirable to deprive the senatorial party of the oratorical talents which gave Cicero a hold on the people, Clodius was allowed to bring charges against him in connection with the execution of the Catilinarian conspirators. The terms of the new law were perfectly general; it simply outlawed any person who had or should hereafter put to death a Roman citizen uncondemned, that is, without due trial and sentence. Cicero took the hint and fled from Rome. At the same time the uncompromising senatorial obstructionist Cato was “kicked upstairs” by being given an appointment as commissioner to supervise the annexation of the island of Cyprus. Ample time was allowed him, and it was arranged that when he had finished with Cyprus, he should go to Byzantium and settle some unimportant disputes in that free city. With Cato kept busy at a long distance from Rome, and with Cicero out of the way, there was little to fear with Clodius acting in the rôle of “boss” of Rome. III THE CONQUEST OF GAUL Very soon after the flight of the great orator, Cæsar, who had been watching with his army the proceedings within the city, started for his province of Gaul. The country which was to be the scene of his labors as governor, and in which through successive campaigns his reputation in generalship was to be made, was larger than modern France, for it extended to the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees. Only a part of it was familiar to the Romans, and for this reason one of the most striking proofs of Cæsar’s skill as a commander is the ability and certainty with which he penetrated into regions unvisited before and therefore unfamiliar to him except by the hearsay stories of the casual traveler. The province had originally been occupied by the Romans in the struggle with Hannibal, because it secured their land communication with Spain. In its southern part it was well developed and civilized, but the limit of Roman rule northward was marked by the valley of the Rhone, and the famous city of Lyons had not yet been founded, which was later on the headquarters of Roman power in Gaul.