sure, and the clearest assurance that
the safety of the state--the supreme law--justified the breach of every
constitutional principle. Cicero was not left long in doubt as to
whether there would be any to question his proceeding. On the last day
of the year, when about to address the people, as was customary, on
laying down his consulship, the tribune Q. Caecilius Metellus Nepos
forbade him to speak, on the express ground that he "had put citizens to
death uncondemned"--_quod cives indemnatos necavisset_. Cicero consoled
himself with taking the required oath as to having observed the laws,
with an additional declaration that he had "saved the state."
Nevertheless, he must have felt deeply annoyed and alarmed at the action
of Metellus, for he had been a _legatus_ of Pompey, and was supposed to
represent his views, and it was upon the approbation and support of
Pompey, now on the eve of his return from the East, that Cicero
particularly reckoned.

[Sidenote: Letters after B.C. 63.]

The letters in our collection now recommence. The first of the year
(B.C. 62) is one addressed to Pompey, expressing some discontent at the
qualified manner in which he had written on recent events, and affirming
his own conviction that he had acted in the best interests of the state
and with universal approval. But indeed the whole correspondence to the
end of Cicero's exile is permeated with this subject directly or
indirectly. His quarrel with Metellus Nepos brought upon him a
remonstrance from the latter's brother (or cousin), Metellus Celer
(Letters XIII, XIV), and when the correspondence for B.C. 61 opens, we
find him already on the eve of the quarrel with Publius Clodius which
was to bring upon him the exile of B.C. 58.

[Sidenote: Publius Clodius Pulcher.]

P. CLODIUS PULCHER was an extreme instance of a character not uncommon
among the nobility in the last age of the Republic. Of high birth, and
possessed of no small amount of ability and energy, he belonged by
origin and connexion to the Optimates; but he regarded politics as a
game to be played for his personal aggrandizement, and public office as
a means of replenishing a purse drained by boundless extravagance and
self-indulgence. His record had been bad. He had accompanied his
brother-in-law Lucullus, or had joined his staff, in the war with
Mithridates, and had helped to excite a mutiny in his army in revenge
for some fancied slight. He had then gone to Cilicia, where anoth