Cicero, being relieved of fear from him as a rival, was wise
enough to see that the collapse might not continue, and that his real
qualities might again bring him to the front. The Clodius business had
been a frightful scandal, and, smooth as the surface might seem, ugly
cracks were opening all round the constitution. The disbanded legions were
impatient for their farms. The knights, who were already offended with the
Senate for having thrown the disgrace of the Clodius trial upon them, had
a fresh and more substantial grievance. The leaders of the order had
contracted to farm the revenues in Asia. They found that the terms which
they had offered were too high, and they claimed an abatement, which the
Senate refused to allow. The Catiline conspiracy should have taught the
necessity of a vigorous administration. Caecilius Metellus and Lucius
Afranius, who had been chosen consuls for the year 60, were mere nothings.
Metellus was a vacant aristocrat,[8] to be depended on for resisting
popular demands, but without insight otherwise; the second, Afranius, was
a person "on whom only a philosopher could look without a groan;" [9] and
one year more might witness the consulship of Caesar. "I have not a
friend," Cicero wrote, "to whom I can express my real thoughts. Things
cannot long stand as they are. I have been vehement: I have put out all my
strength in the hope of mending matters and healing our disorders, but we
will not endure the necessary medicine.
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