Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/257

59 B.C.] intimate terms, assured Cicero's friend that she was urging her brother on this new course, but it is not clear that she told Atticus the truth. In any case this quarrel was soon patched up, and before Clodius was elected tribune he and Cæsar were again fast friends. He now openly announced that he intended to attack Cicero, and Pompey as vehemently protested that he would allow no such thing. "He declares that there is no danger; he takes his oath to it; he adds that Clodius will have to pass over his dead body before he shall do me any harm." And again: "It would be an everlasting disgrace to him, he says, if any mischief came to me, through the man into whose hands he placed a weapon of offence, when he allowed him to become a plebeian."

Cæsar however had otherwise determined. From the time when he returned from Spain to the end of his life, it was a principle of Cæsar's policy that Cicero must be brought over to his side. Sometimes he tries to attract him by friendly offers and delicate acts of kindness, sometimes to drive him by well-directed strokes of chastisement. The means employed might differ, but in pursuit of the end Cæsar never wearied; he knew full well that the great orator must be either a useful ally or a dangerous enemy, and that he could not afford to neglect him. In the present crisis he was prepared to employ either method as occasion might serve. For the moment he held Clodius in leash, but he made it clear that