he election of
Milo to the consulship was of the utmost importance to his own position
and the safety of the state,[18] now that it was rendered impossible by
Milo's condemnation, he seems to have placed all his hopes on Pompey.
Unfortunately, there is here a break in the correspondence. There is no
letter of the last six months of B.C. 53, and only four (perhaps only
three) of B.C. 52.[19] So that the riots which prevented Milo's
election, the death of Clodius and the riots following it, and the
consequent sole consulship of Pompey, with the latter's new legislation
and the trial of Milo--all have to be sought for elsewhere. The last
letter of this volume and of this year, addressed to M. Marius in
December, B.C. 52, alludes to the condemnation of Milo, and to the
numerous prosecutions following it. "Here, in Rome, I am so distracted
by the number of trials, the crowded courts, and the new legislation,
that I daily offer prayers that there may be no intercalation."[20]

[Sidenote: Cicero appointed Proconsul of Cilicia, B.C. 51-50.]

When the correspondence opens again in the spring of B.C. 51 an event
has happened, of no particular importance in itself, but of supreme
interest to Cicero, and very fortunate for the readers of the
correspondence. One of Pompey's new laws ordained that no one was to
take a province till the fifth year after laying down his consulship or
praetorship. Pompey broke his own law by keeping his province, the
Spains--his position in regard to them was altogether exceptional--but,
in order to carry out the law in other cases, the senate arranged that
ex-consuls and ex-praetors who had not been to provinces should in turn
draw lots for vacant governorships. Cicero and Bibulus appear to have
been the senior _consulares_ in that position, and with much reluctance
Cicero allowed his name to be cast into the urn. He drew Cilicia and
Bibulus Syria. He says that his motive was a desire to obey the wishes
of the senate. Another motive may have been a desire to be away from
Rome while the controversy as to Caesar's retirement from his province
was settled, and to retrieve a position of some political importance,
which he had certainly not increased during the last few years. When it
came to the actual start, however, he felt all the _gene_ of the
business--the formation and control of his staff, the separation from
friends, and the residence far from the "light and life" of Rome, among
officials who were