You gave the praise to me and I to the gods; and now unless some god looks
favorably on us, all is lost in this single judgment. Thirty Romans have
been found to trample justice under foot for a bribe, and to declare an
act not to have been committed, about which not only not a man, but not a
beast of the field, can entertain the smallest doubt."
Cato threatened the judges with impeachment; Cicero stormed in the Senate,
rebuked the consul Piso, and lectured Clodius in a speech which he himself
admired exceedingly. The "pretty boy" in reply taunted Cicero with wishing
to make himself a king. Cicero rejoined with asking Clodius about a man
named "King," whose estates he had appropriated, and reminded him of a
misadventure among the pirates, from which he had come off with nameless
ignominy. Neither antagonist very honorably distinguished himself in this
encounter of wit. The Senate voted at last for an inquiry into the judges'
conduct; but an inquiry only added to Cicero's vexation, for his special
triumph had been, as he conceived, the union of the Senate with the
equites; and the equites took the resolution as directed against
themselves, and refused to be consoled.[3]
Caesar had been absent during these scenes. His term of office having
expired, he had been despatched as propraetor to Spain, where the ashes of
the Sertorian rebellion were still smouldering; and he had started for his
province while the question of Clodius's trial was still pending.
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