Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/313

55 B.C.]

old consular dignity of a brave and consistent senator, there is no use thinking of that; it has been lost, all through the fault of those who estranged from the Senate that order which would have been their best friend, and that man who would have been their most glorious champion."

We hear little of Clodius at this time; probably he had received notice from Cæsar that he must not disturb the peace. At any rate we find that Cicero was able to be reconciled with two of Clodius' chief backers, his brother Appius and Crassus, the third member of the triumvirate. In the latter case a renunciation of their long-standing feud was pressed upon both of them by Pompey and Cæsar, and was rendered the easier by the mediation of young Publius Crassus, then as always a devoted friend of Cicero. With all his violence of expression Cicero was of a very placable nature, and found it almost impossible to refuse a hand which was held out to him. In the matter of Crassus, he says to Lentulus, "I obeyed the call not only of expediency, but of my own disposition." Immediately before his departure for the East Crassus accepted an invitation to dinner from Cicero in the gardens of his son-in-law Crassipes, "so that he started for his province almost from my hearthstone."

During the year 54, no great change occurred in