be made to
go, and Caesar was lord of the Triumvirate. On behalf of Cicero there was
a large body of the conservative or oligarchical party who were still
true to him; and they, too, all went into the usual public mourning,
evincing their desire that the accused man should be rescued from his
accusers.

The bitterness of Clodius would be surprising did we not know how bitter
had been Cicero's tongue. When the affair of the Bona Dea had taken
place there was no special enmity between this debauched young man and
the great Consul. Cicero, though his own life had ever been clean and
well ordered, rather affected the company of fast young men when he
found them to be witty as well as clever. This very Clodius had been in
his good books till the affair of the Bona Dea. But now the Tribune's
hatred was internecine. I have hitherto said nothing, and need say but
little, of a certain disreputable lady named Clodia. She was the sister
of Clodius and the wife of Metellus Celer. She was accused by public
voice in Rome of living in incest with her brother, and of poisoning her
husband. Cicero calls her afterward, in his defence of Caelius, "amica
omnium." She had the nickname of Quadrantaria[276] given to her, because
she frequented the public baths, at which the charge was a farthing. It
must be said also of her, either in praise or in dispraise, that she was
the Lesbia who inspired the muse of Catullus. It was rumored in Rome
that she had endeavored to set her cap at Cicero. Cicero in his raillery
had not spared the lady. To speak publicly the grossest evil of women
was not opposed to any idea of gallantry current among the Romans. Our
sense of chivalry, as well as decency, is disgusted by the language used
by Horace to women who once to him were young and pretty, but have
become old and ugly. The venom of Cicero's abuse of Clodia annoys us,
and we have to remember that the gentle ideas which we have taken in
with our mother's milk had not grown into use with the Romans. It is
necessary that this woman's name should be mentioned, and it may appear
here as she was one of the causes of that hatred which burnt between
Clodius and Cicero, till Clodius was killed in a street row.

It has been presumed that Cicero was badly advised in presuming publicly
that the new law was intended against himself, and in taking upon
himself the outward signs of a man under affliction. "The resolution,"
says Middleton, "of changing his gown was too