Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/72

 64 CICERO. him while he was drinking. "You have reason to be afraid," he said, " lest the censor should be angry with me for drinking watei'." Meeting one day Voconius with his three very ugly daughters, he quoted the verse, He reared a race without Apollo's leave. Wlien Marcus Gellius, who was reputed the son of a slave, had read several letters in the senate with a very shrill, and loud voice, " Wonder not," said Cicero, " he comes of the criers." When Faustus Sylla, the son of Sylla the dictator, who had, during his dictatoi-ship, by public bills proscribed and condemned so many citizens, had so far wasted his estate, and got into debt, that he was forced to publish his bills of sale, Cicero told him that he liked these bills much better than those of his father. By this habit he made himself odious with many people. But Clodius's faction conspired against him upon the following occasion. Clodiiis was a member of a noble family, in the flower of his youth, and of a bold and reso- lute temj^er. He, being in love with Pompeia, Ctesar's wife, got privately into his house in the dress and attire of a music-girl ; the women being at that time offering there the sacrifice which must not be seen by men, and there was no man present. Clodius, being a youth and beardless, hoped to get to Pompeia among the women without being taken notice of But coming into a great house by night, he missed his way in the passages, and a servant belonging to Aurelia, Ctesar's mother, spying him wandering up and down, inquired his name. Thus being necessitated to speak, he told her he was seeking for one of Pompeia's maids, Abra by name ; and she, perceiving it not to be a woman's voice, shrieked out, and called in the women ; who, shutting the gates, and searching every place, at length found Clodius hidden in the chamber of