All the
offices fell vacant together.
Now once more Clodius was reappearing on the scene. He had been silent for
two years, content or constrained to leave the control of the democracy to
the three chiefs. One of them was now gone. The more advanced section of
the party was beginning to distrust Pompey. Clodius, their favorite
representative, had been put forward for the praetorship, while Milo was
aspiring to be made consul, and Clodius had prepared a fresh batch of laws
to be submitted to the sovereign people; one of which (if Cicero did not
misrepresent it to inflame the aristocracy) was a measure of some kind for
the enfranchisement of the slaves, or perhaps of the sons of slaves.[17]
He was as popular as ever. He claimed to be acting for Caesar, and was
held certain of success; if he was actually praetor, such was his
extraordinary influence, and such was the condition of things in the city,
that if Milo was out of the way he could secure consuls of his own way of
thinking, and thus have the whole constitutional power in his hands.[18]
Thus both sides had reason for fearing and postponing the elections.
Authority, which had been weak before, was now extinct. Rome was in a
state of formal anarchy, and the factions of Milo and Clodius fought
daily, as before, in the streets, with no one to interfere with them.
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