Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/291

56 B.C.]

dissensions between Pompey and Crassus. There never was much love lost between the two, and though Cæsar had brought them together, their true feelings manifested themselves now that Cæsar's presence was withdrawn. We find Pompey complaining to Cicero in February, 56, "that plots were being laid against his life; that money was being supplied by Crassus to Clodius and to Clodius' associate, Caius Cato, and that Curio, Bibulus, and others of his old opponents were likewise backing up the pair." In order to protect himself, Pompey was obliged to enroll a band of roughs, whom he imported from his native Picenum.

Meanwhile Clodius did not have it all his own way in the streets. Cicero's escort showed fight on the occasion when Clodius set upon him in the "Via Sacra." They retired into a friend's portico, and beat back their assailants from thence. At one moment Clodius' life was at their mercy, but Cicero would not give the word. "I am weary," he writes, "of heroic surgery, and am trying to starve out the disease." Milo was less scrupulous. "I think," says Cicero in the same letter, "that Publius will be brought to trial by Milo, unless he is killed first. If he puts himself in Milo's road during a riot, Milo will certainly do it; he is quite resolved and announces it openly; he has no fear of failing as I did, for he puts his trust in no one but himself."