Clodius was now but a private citizen; but private
citizens might resist sacrilege if the magistrates forgot their duty. He
marched to the Palatine with his gang. He drove out the workmen, broke
down the walls, and wrecked the adjoining house, which belonged to
Cicero's brother Quintus. The next day he set on Cicero himself in the Via
Sacra, and nearly murdered him, and he afterward tried to burn the house
of Milo. Consuls and tribunes did not interfere. They were, perhaps,
frightened. The Senate professed regret, and it was proposed to prosecute
Clodius; but his friends were too strong, and it could not be done. Could
Cicero have wrung his neck, as he had wrung the necks of Lentulus and
Cethegus, Rome and he would have had a good deliverance. Failing this, he
might wisely have waited for the law, which in time must have helped him.
But he let himself down to Clodius's level. He railed at him in the Curia
as he had railed at Gabinius and Piso. He ran over his history; he taunted
him with incest with his sister, and with filthy relations with vulgar
millionaires. He accused him of having sold himself to Catiline, of
having forged wills, murdered the heirs of estates and stolen their
property, of having murdered officers of the treasury and seized the
public money, of having outraged gods and men, decency, equity, and law;
of having suffered every abomination and committed every crime of which
human nature was capable.
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