But men so fed and so amused were sure to need further occupations.

They became attached to certain friends, to certain patrons, and to certain parties, and soon learned that a return was expected for the food and for the excitement supplied to them.

This they gave by holding themselves in readiness for whatever violence was needed from them, till it became notorious in Rome that a great party man might best attain his political object by fighting for it in the streets.

This was the meaning of that saying of Crassus, that a man could not be considered rich till he could keep an army in his own pay.

A popular vote obtained and declared by a faction fight in the forum was still a popular vote, and if supported by sufficient violence would be valid.
There had been street fighting of the kind when Cicero had defended Caius Cornelius, in the year after his Praetorship; there had been fighting of the kind when Rabirius had been condemned in his Consulship.
We shall learn by-and-by to what extent such fighting prevailed when Clodius was killed by Milo's body-guard.