his most powerful friends pressed upon
him, and this was the course which he chose. He left Rome, intending to
go to Sicily, where he knew that he should find the heartiest of
welcomes.

Immediately on his departure Clodius formally proposed his banishment.
"Let it be enacted," so ran the proposition, "that, seeing that Marcus
Tullius Cicero has put Roman citizens to death without trial, forging
thereto the authority of the Senate, that he be forbidden fire and
water; that no one harbor or receive him on pain of death; and that
whosoever shall move, shall vote, or take any steps for the recalling of
him, be dealt with as a public enemy." The bill was passed, the distance
within which it was to operate being fixed at four hundred miles. The
houses of the banished man were razed to the ground, the site of the
mansion on the. Palatine, being dedicated to Liberty. His property was
partly plundered, partly sold by auction.

Cicero meanwhile had hurried to the south of Italy. He found shelter for
a while at the farm of a friend near Vibo in Brutii (now the Abruzzi),
but found it necessary to leave this place because it was within the
prescribed limits. Sicily was forbidden to him by its governor, who,
though a personal friend, was unwilling to displease the party in power.
Athens, which for many reasons he would have liked to choose for his
place of exile, was unsafe. He had bitter enemies there, men who had
been mixed up in Catiline's conspiracy. The place, too, was within the
distance, and though this was not very strictly insisted upon--as a
matter of fact, he did spend the greater part of his banishment inside
the prescribed limit--it might at any moment be made a means of
annoyance. Atticus invited him to take up his residence at his seat at
Buthrotum in Epirus (now Albania). But the proposal did not commend
itself to his taste. It was out of the way, and would be very dreary
without the presence of its master, who was still at Rome, and
apparently intended to remain there. After staying for about a fortnight
at a friend's house near Dyrrachium--the town itself, where he was once
very popular, for fear of bringing some trouble upon it, he refused to
enter--he crossed over to Greece, and ultimately settled himself at
Thessalonica.

Long afterward he tells us of a singular dream which seems to have given
him some little comfort at this time. "I had lain awake for the greater
part of the night, but fell into a heavy slu