ch
in passages that give a lively picture of the life of the time:

Cicero, convinced that he must go into exile or leave the question
to be decided by armed conflict with Clodius, determined to ask
Pompeius for help; but he had purposely gone away and was now
staying at his villa in the Alban hills. Accordingly, Cicero first
sent Piso, his son-in-law, to make an appeal, and afterwards went
himself. When Pompeius knew that he had come, he did not wait to
see him (for he was terribly ashamed to face the man who had
engaged in hard struggles on his behalf and often shaped his
policy to please him), but at the request of Caesar, whose
daughter he had married, he was false to those obsolete services,
and, slipping out by a back door, managed to evade the interview.

Thus betrayed by Pompeius and left without support, Cicero put
himself in the hands of the consuls. Gabinius was harsh and
unrelenting, but Piso spoke more gently to him, bidding him
withdraw and let Clodius have his day, endure the changed times,
and become once more the saviour of his country, which his enemy
had filled with strife and suffering. After this answer Cicero
consulted his friends, and Lucullus urged him to remain in the
assurance that he would prevail, but others advised him to go into
exile; for the people would feel his loss when it had enough of
the mad recklessness of Clodius. He accepted this council, and
taking to the Capitol the image of Minerva, a prized possession
which had long stood in his house, he dedicated it with the
inscription, 'To Minerva, guardian of Rome,' Then, having got an
escort from his friends, he left the city secretly at night, and
journeyed by land through Lucania, wishing to reach Sicily.

31. Secs. 2-5.

As a matter of fact the immediate danger from Catiline had been
exaggerated. People came to see this in a very few months. Catiline
raised a few hundred men and was killed fighting. The real danger lay
not in him but in the economic and political condition of Rome and
Italy. Its causes were the mismanagement, corruption, and feebleness of
the Government; the flaunting vulgarity and profiteering of the rich;
the misery of the poor. Cicero had done nothing to meet these evils: he
had no plan for doing so; he hardly realized that they were there. Men
had called him 'Father of his country'. That great day was ever in his
mind. As he thought of it his vanity swe