s (vol. i., pp. 214, 217). Milo was also acquitted, and
the rest of Clodius's aedileship seems to have passed without farther
acts of open violence.

[Sidenote: Cicero and the Triumvirs.]

But Cicero had now other causes of anxiety. He had spoken in favour of
the commission offered to Pompey in B.C. 57 for superintending the
corn-supply of Rome (_cura annonae_). Pompey was to have fifteen legates,
a good supply of ships and men, and considerable powers in all
corn-growing countries in the Mediterranean. Cicero supported this,
partly from gratitude to Pompey, but partly also from a wish to promote
his power and influence against the ever-increasing influence and fame
of Caesar. He secretly hoped that a jealousy might grow up between them;
that Pompey would be drawn closer to the Optimates; and that the union
of the triumvirate might be gradually weakened and finally disappear.
Pompey was thoroughly offended and alarmed by the insults offered him by
the Clodian mob, and by Clodius's own denunciations of him; and if he
could be convinced that these were suggested or approved by Caesar or
Crassus, it would go far to withdraw him from friendship with either of
them. With Crassus, indeed, he had never been on cordial terms: it was
only Caesar's influence that had caused him to form any union with him.
Caesar, on the other hand, was likely to be uneasy at the great powers
which the _cura annonae_ put into Pompey's hands; and at the possible
suggestion of offering him the dictatorship, if the Clodian riots became
quite intolerable. On the whole, Cicero thought that he saw the element
of a very pretty quarrel, from which he hoped that the result might be
"liberty"--the orderly working of the constitution, that is, without the
irregular supremacy of anyone, at any rate of anyone of the popular
party. He had, however, a delicate part to play. He did not wish or dare
to break openly with Caesar, or to speak too openly to Pompey; and he was
conscious that the intemperance, folly, or indifference of many of the
Optimates made it difficult to reckon on their support, and made that
support a very questionable benefit if accorded. But though his letters
of this period are full of expressions indicating doubt of Pompey and
irritation with him, yet he seems still to have spoken of him with
warmth on public occasions, while he avoided mentioning Caesar, or spoke
of him only in cold terms.

[Sidenote: Renewal of the Triumvirate at Luca, A