So Cicero had construed the situation before his exile, and he had
construed it ill. If he had wished to retire he could not. He had been
called to account for the part of his conduct for which he most admired
himself. The ungracious Senate, as guilty as he, if guilt there had been,
had left him to bear the blame of it, and he saw himself driven into
banishment by an insolent reprobate, a patrician turned Radical and
demagogue, Publius Clodius. Indignity could be carried no farther.
Clodius is the most extraordinary figure in this extraordinary period. He
had no character. He had no distinguished talent save for speech; he had
no policy; he was ready to adopt any cause or person which for the moment
was convenient to him; and yet for five years this man was the omnipotent
leader of the Roman mob. He could defy justice, insult the consuls, beat
the tribunes, parade the streets with a gang of armed slaves, killing
persons disagreeable to him; and in the Senate itself he had his high
friends and connections who threw a shield over him when his audacity had
gone beyond endurance. We know Clodius only from Cicero; and a picture of
him from a second hand might have made his position more intelligible, if
not more reputable. Even in Rome it is scarcely credible that the Clodius
of Cicero could have played such a part, or that the death of such a man
should have been regarded as a national calamity.
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