n an embassy to Tigranes, King of Armenia. "Do not think,"
he says, "that I am complaining of all this because I myself am desirous
of being engaged in public affairs. Even while it was mine to sit at the
helm I was tired of the work; but now, when I am in truth driven out of
the ship, when the rudder has not been thrown down but seized out of my
hands, how should I take a pleasure in looking from the shore at the
wrecks which these other pilots have made?" But the study of human
nature tells us, and all experience, that men are unable to fathom their
own desires, and fail to govern themselves by the wisdom which is at
their fingers' ends. The retiring Prime-minister cannot but hanker after
the seals and the ribbons and the titles of office, even though his soul
be able to rise above considerations of emolument, and there will creep
into a man's mind an idea that, though reform of abuses from other
sources may be impossible, if he were there once more the evil could at
least be mitigated, might possibly be cured. So it was during this
period of his life with Cicero. He did believe that political justice
exercised by himself, with such assistance as his eloquence would obtain
for it, might be efficacious for preserving the Republic, in spite of
Caesar, and of Pompey, and of Crassus. He did not yet believe that these
men would consent to such an outrage as his banishment. It must have
been incredible to him that Pompey should assent to it. When the blow
came, it crushed him for the time. But he retricked his beams and
struggled on to the end, as we shall see if we follow his life to the
close.

Such was the intended purpose of the degradation of Clodius. This,
however, was not at once declared. It was said that Clodius as Tribune
intended rather to oppose Caesar than to assist him. He at any rate chose
that Cicero should so believe and sent Curio, a young man to whom Cicero
was attached to visit the orator at his villa at Antium and to declare
these friendly purposes. According to the story told by Cicero,[251]
Clodius was prepared to oppose the Triumvirate; and the other young men
of Rome, the _jeunesse doree_, of which both Curio and Clodius were
members, were said to be equally hostile to Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus,
whose doings in opposition to the constitution were already evident
enough; so that it suited Cicero to believe that the rising aristocracy
of Rome would oppose them. But the aristocracy of Rome, whether ol