on one occasion nearly lost his life. This was the beginning of
the series of violent contests between Clodius and Milo, only ended by
the murder of the former on the Appian road in B.C. 52. But Clodius was
a candidate for the aedileship in this year (B.C. 57), and could be
barred from that office legally by a prosecution for _vis_, of which
Milo gave notice against him. It was, perhaps, a desire to avoid this,
as much as fear of Milo's counter exhibition of violence, that at length
caused him to relax in his opposition, or at any rate to abstain from
violently interrupting the _comitia_. Accordingly, on the 4th of August,
the law proposed by both consuls, and supported by Pompey, was passed
unanimously by the centuries. Cicero, we must presume, had received
trustworthy information that this was to be the case (shewing that some
understanding had been come to with Clodius, or there would have been no
certainty of his not violently dispersing the _comitia_ again), for on
that same day he set sail from Dyrrachium and landed at Brundisium on
the 5th. His triumphant return to Rome is described in the eighty-ninth
letter of this collection. For Pompey's share in securing it he
expressed, and seems really to have felt, an exaggerated gratitude,
which still influenced him in the unhappy months of B.C. 49, when he was
hesitating as to joining him beyond seas in the civil war.

But though Clodius had somehow been prevented from hindering his recall,
he by no means relaxed his hostility. He not only tried to excite the
populace against him by arguing that the scarcity and consequent high
price of corn, from which the people were at that time suffering, was in
some way attributable to Cicero's policy, but he also opposed the
restoration of his house; and when a decree of the senate was passed in
Cicero's favour on that point, brought his armed ruffians to prevent the
workmen from going on with the rebuilding, as well as to molest Cicero
himself (vol. i., p. 195). This was followed by a determined opposition
by Milo to the holding of the elections for B.C. 56, until his
prosecution of Clodius _de vi_ should have been tried. Clodius, however,
was acquitted,[12] and, being elected aedile, immediately commenced a
counter accusation against Milo for _vis_. He impeached him before the
_comitia_ in February (B.C. 56), on which occasion Pompey spoke in
Milo's defence in the midst of a storm of interruptions got up by the
friends of Clodiu