was committed to the loose and dissolute, but clever and pre-
eminently audacious Publius Clodius, who had lived for years
in the bitterest enmity with Cicero, and, with the view of satisfying
that enmity and playing a part as demagogue, had got himself converted
under the consulship of Caesar by a hasty adoption from a patrician
into a plebeian, and then chosen as tribune of the people
for the year 696. To support Clodius, the proconsul Caesar remained
in the immediate vicinity of the capital till the blow was struck
against the two victims. Agreeably to the instructions
which he had received, Clodius proposed to the burgesses to entrust
Cato with the regulation of the complicated municipal affairs
of the Byzantines and with the annexation of the kingdom of Cyprus,
which as well as Egypt had fallen to the Romans by the testament
of Alexander II, but had not like Egypt bought off the Roman
annexation, and the king of which, moreover, had formerly given
personal offence to Clodius. As to Cicero, Clodius brought in
a project of law which characterized the execution of a burgess
without trial and sentence as a crime to be punished with banishment.
Cato was thus removed by an honourable mission, while Cicero
was visited at least with the gentlest possible punishment and,
besides, was not designated by name in the proposal. But they did not
refuse themselves the pleasure, on the one hand, of punishing
a man notoriously timid and belonging to the class of political
weathercocks for the conservative energy which he displayed,
and, on the other hand, of investing the bitter opponent
of all interferences of the burgesses in administration
and of all extraordinary commands with such a command conferred
by decree of the burgesses themselves; and with similar humour
the proposal respecting Cato was based on the ground of the abnormal
virtue of the man, which made him appear pre-eminently qualified
to execute so delicate a commission, as was the confiscation
of the considerable crown treasure of Cyprus, without embezzlement.
Both proposals bear generally the same character of respectful
deference and cool irony, which marks throughout the bearing of Caesar
in reference to the senate. They met with no resistance.
It was naturally of no avail, that the majority of the senate,
with the view of protesting in some way against the mockery
and censure of their decree in the matter of Catilina, publicly
put on mourning, and that Cice