on to
his wife, but only to a freedman of hers, Philotomus. When Milo was
convicted, his goods were confiscated and sold as a part of his
punishment. Philotomus is supposed to have been a purchaser, and to have
made money out of the transaction--taking advantage of his position to
acquire cheap bargains--as should not have been done by any one
connected with Cicero, who had been Milo's friend. The cause of Cicero's
quarrel with his wife has never been absolutely known, but it is
supposed to have arisen from her want of loyalty to him in regard to
money. She probably employed this freedman in filling her pockets at the
expense of her husband's character.

[Sidenote: B.C. 50, aetat. 57.]

In his own letters he tells of preparations made for his return, and
allusions are made as to his expected triumph. He is grateful to Caelius
as to what has been done as to the supplication, and expresses his
confidence that all the rest will follow.[112] He is so determined to
hurry away that he will not wait for the nomination of a successor, and
resolves to put the government into the hands of any one of his officers
who may be least unfit to hold it. His brother Quintus was his
lieutenant, but if he left Quintus people would say of him that in doing
so he was still keeping the emoluments in his own hands. At last he
determines to intrust it to a young Quaestor named C. Caelius--no close
connection of his friend Caelius, as Cicero finds himself obliged to
apologize for the selection to his friend. "Young, you will say. No
doubt; but he had been elected Quaestor, and is of noble birth."[113] So
he gives over the province to the young man, having no one else fitter.

Cicero tells us afterward, when at Athens on his way home, that he had
considerable trouble with his own people on withholding certain plunder
which was regarded by them as their perquisite. He had boasted much of
their conduct--having taken exception to one Tullius, who had demanded
only a little hay and a little wood. But now there came to be
pickings--savings out of his own proconsular expenses--to part with
which at the last moment was too hard upon them. "How difficult is
virtue," he exclaims; "how doubly difficult to pretend to act up to it
when it is not felt!"[114] There had been a certain sum saved which he
had been proud to think that he would return to the treasury. But the
satellites were all in arms: "Ingemuit nostra cohors." Nevertheless, he
disregarded the