Cicero's main affection
was for Titus Annius Milo, to whom he clung as a woman will cling to a man
whose strength she hopes will support her weakness. Milo, at least, would
revenge his wrongs upon Clodius. Clodius, Cicero said even in the Senate,
was Milo's predestined victim.[14] Titus Annius knew how an armed citizen
who burnt temples and honest men's houses ought to be dealt with. Titus
Annius was born to extinguish that pest of the Commonwealth.[15]
Still smarting over his exile, Cicero went one day with Milo and his
gladiators to the Capitol when Clodius was absent, and carried off the
brass tablet on which the decree of his exile had been engraved. It was
some solace to his poor vanity to destroy the record of his misfortune.
But it was in vain. All was going wrong. Caesar's growing glories came
thick to trouble his peace. He, after all, then, was not to be the
greatest man in Rome. How would these splendid successes affect parties?
How would they affect Pompey? How would, they affect the Senate? What
should he do himself?
The Senate distrusted him; the people distrusted him. In his perplexity he
tried to rouse the aristocracy to a sense of their danger, and hinted that
his was the name which yet might save them.
Sextius, who had been a tribune with Milo in the past year, was under
prosecution for one of the innumerable acts of violence which had
disgraced the city.
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