I have the use of
both, as if they were my own. Nor could I have crushed the conspiracy of a
set of villains to ruin me, unless, in addition to the defences which I
always possessed, I had secured the goodwill of the men in power." [6]
[Sidenote: B.C. 54.]
Cicero's conscience could not have been easy when he was driven to such
laborious apologies. He spoke often of intending to withdraw into his
family, and devoting his time entirely to literature; but he could not
bring himself to leave the political ferment; and he was possessed besides
with a passionate desire to revenge himself on those who had injured him.
An opportunity seemed to present itself. The persons whom he hated most,
after Clodius, were the two consuls Gabinius and Piso, who had permitted
his exile. They had both conducted themselves abominably in the provinces,
which they had bought, he said, at the price of his blood. Piso had been
sent to Macedonia, where he had allowed his army to perish by disease and
neglect. The frontiers had been overrun with brigands, and the outcries of
his subjects had been audible even in Rome against his tyranny and
incapacity. Gabinius, in Syria, had been more ambitious, and had exposed
himself to an indignation more violent because more interested. At a hint
from Pompey, he had restored Ptolemy to Egypt on his own authority and
without waiting for the Senate's sanction, and he had snatched for himself
the prize for which the chiefs of the Senate had been contending.
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