hecking the system of bands, been imposed on the right
of association of the lower classes, and reestablished the "street-clubs"
(-collegia compitalicia-) at that time abolished, which were nothing
else than a formal organization--subdivided according to the streets,
and with an almost military arrangement--of the whole free
or slave proletariate of the capital. If in addition the further law,
which Clodius had likewise already projected and purposed to introduce
when praetor in 702, should give to freedmen and to slaves living
in de facto possession of freedom the same political rights
with the freeborn, the author of all these brave improvements
of the constitution might declare his work complete, and as
a second Numa of freedom and equality might invite the sweet rabble
of the capital to see him celebrate high mass in honour of the arrival
of the democratic millennium in the temple of Liberty which he had
erected on the site of one of his burnings at the Palatine.
Of course these exertions in behalf of freedom did not exclude
a traffic in decrees of the burgesses; like Caesar himself, Caesar's ape
kept governorships and other posts great and small on sale
for the benefit of his fellow-citizens, and sold the sovereign rights
of the state for the benefit of subject kings and cities.

Quarrel of Pompeius with Clodius

At all these things Pompeius looked on without stirring.
If he did not perceive how seriously he thus compromised himself,
his opponent perceived it. Clodius had the hardihood to engage
in a dispute with the regent of Rome on a question of little moment,
as to the sending back of a captive Armenian prince; and the variance
soon became a formal feud, in which the utter helplessness
of Pompeius was displayed. The head of the state knew not how to meet
the partisan otherwise than with his own weapons, only wielded
with far less dexterity. If he had been tricked by Clodius respecting
the Armenian prince, he offended him in turn by releasing Cicero,
who was preeminently obnoxious to Clodius, from the exile
into which Clodius had sent him; and he attained his object
so thoroughly, that he converted his opponent into an implacable foe.
If Clodius made the streets insecure with his bands, the victorious
general likewise set slaves and pugilists to work; in the frays
which ensued the general naturally was worsted by the demagogue
and defeated in the street, and Gaius Cato was kept almost constantly
under sie