fight it out? The latter course was the one
on which he was still resolved in July, when Clodius had been, or was on
the point of being, elected tribune (p. 110). He afterwards wavered (p.
113), but was encouraged by the belief that all the "orders" were
favourable to him, and were becoming alienated from the triumvirs (pp.
117, 119), especially after the affair of Vettius (pp. 122-124), and by
the friendly disposition of many of the colleagues of Clodius in the
tribuneship. With such feelings of confidence and courage the letters of
B.C. 59 come to an end.

[Sidenote: The Exile, April, B.C. 58--August, B.C. 57.]

The correspondence only opens again in April of B.C. 58, when the worst
has happened. Clodius entered upon his tribuneship on the 10th of
December, B.C. 59, and lost little time in proposing a law to the
_comitia_ for the trial of any magistrate guilty of putting citizens to
death without trial (_qui cives indemnatos necavisset_). The wording of
the law thus left it open to plead that it applied only to such act as
occurred after its enactment, for the pluperfect _necavisset_ in the
dependent clause answers to the future perfect in a direct one. And this
was the interpretation that Caesar, while approving the law itself,
desired to put upon it.[8] He again offered Cicero a legation in Gaul,
but would do nothing for him if he stayed in Rome; while Pompey, who had
been profuse in promises of protection, either avoided seeing Cicero, or
treated his abject entreaties with cold disdain.[9] Every citizen, by a
humane custom at Rome, had the right of avoiding a prosecution by
quitting the city and residing in some town which had the _ius exilii_.
It is this course that we find Cicero already entered upon when the
correspondence of the year begins. In the letters of this year of exile
he continually reproaches himself with not having stayed and even
supported the law, in full confidence that it could not be applied to
himself. He attributes his having taken the less courageous course to
the advice of his friends, who were actuated by jealousy and a desire
to get rid of him. Even Atticus he thinks was timid, at the best, in
advising his retirement. It is the only occasion in all the
correspondence in which the least cloud seems to have rested on the
perfect friendship of the two men. Atticus does not appear to have shewn
any annoyance at the querulous remarks of his friend. He steadily
continued to write, giving infor