are anxious
to save this wicked young nobleman from the punishment due to him;
whereas others of whom he approves Cato among the number, are desirous
of seeing justice done. But it was no affair special to Cicero. Shortly
afterward he writes again to Atticus as to the result of the trial--for
a trial did take place--and explains to his friend how justice had
failed. Atticus had asked him how it had come to pass that he, Cicero,
had not exerted himself as he usually did.[225] This letter, though
there is matter enough in it of a serious kind, yet jests with the
Clodian affair so continually as to make us feel that he attributed no
importance to it as regarded himself. He had exerted himself till
Hortensius made a mistake as to the selection of the judges. After that
he had himself given evidence. An attempt was made to prove an alibi,
but Cicero came forward to swear that he had seen Clodius on the very
day in question. There had, too, been an exchange of repartee in the
Senate between himself and Clodius after the acquittal, of which he
gives the details to his correspondent with considerable
self-satisfaction. The passage does not enhance our idea of the dignity
of the Senate, or of the power of Roman raillery. It was known that
Clodius had been saved by the wholesale bribery of a large number of the
judges. There had been twenty-five for condemning against thirty-one for
acquittal.[226] Cicero in the Catiline affair had used a phrase with
frequency by which he boasted that he had "found out" this and "found
out" that--"comperisse omnia." Clodius, in the discussion before the
trial, throws this in his teeth: "Comperisse omnia criminabatur." This
gave rise to ill-feeling, and hurt Cicero much worse than the dishonor
done to the Bona Dea. As for that, we may say that he and the Senate and
the judges cared personally very little, although there was no doubt a
feeling that it was wise to awe men's minds by the preservation of
religious respect. Cicero had cared but little about the trial; but as
he had been able to give evidence he had appeared as a witness, and
enmity sprung from the words which were spoken both on one side and on
the other. Clodius was acquitted, which concerns us not at all, and
concerns Rome very little; but things had so come to pass at the trial
that Cicero had been very bitter, and that Clodius had become his enemy.
When a man was wanted, three years afterward, to take the lead in
persecuting Cicero,