e as a
son. For doing this in any case a law had to be passed--or, in other
words, the assent of the people must be obtained and registered. But
many conditions were necessary. The father intending to adopt must have
no living son of his own, and must be past the time of life at which he
might naturally hope to have one; and the adopted son must be of a
fitting age to personate a son--at any rate, must be younger than the
father; nothing must be done injurious to either family; there must be
no trick in it, no looking after other result than that plainly
intended. All these conditions were broken. The pretended father,
Fonteius, had a family of his own, and was younger than Clodius. The
great Claudian family was desecrated, and there was no one so ignorant
as not to know that the purpose intended was that of entering the
Tribunate by a fraud. It was required by the general law that the Sacred
College should report as to the proper observances of the prescribed
regulations, but no priest was ever consulted. Yet Clodius was adopted,
made a Plebeian, and in the course of the year elected as Tribune.

In reading all this, the reader is mainly struck by the wonderful
admixture of lawlessness and law-abiding steadfastness. If Caesar, who
was already becoming a tyrant in his Consulship, chose to make use of
this means of silencing Cicero, why not force Clodius into the Tribunate
without so false and degrading a ceremony? But if, as was no doubt the
case, he was not yet strong enough to ignore the old popular feelings on
the subject, how was it that he was able to laugh in his sleeve at the
laws, and to come forth at a moment's notice and cause the people to
vote, legally or illegally, just as he pleased? It requires no conjurer
to tell us the reason. The outside hulls and husks remain when the rich
fruit has gone. It was in seeing this, and yet not quite believing that
it must be so, that the agony of Cicero's life consisted. There could
have been no hope for freedom, no hope for the Republic, when Rome had
been governed as it was during the Consulship of Caesar; but Cicero could
still hope, though faintly, and still buoy himself up with remembrances
of his own year of office.

In carrying on the story of the newly-adopted child to his election as
Tribune, I have gone beyond the time of my narration, so that the reader
may understand the cause and nature and effect of the anger which
Clodius entertained for Cicero. This origi