Together with Cicero, it had been necessary to Caesar's projects that Cato also should be got out of Rome; and this had been managed by means of Clodius, who had a bill passed for the honorable employment of Cato on state purposes in Cyprus.

Cato had found himself obliged to go.

It was as though our Prime-minister had got parliamentary authority for sending a noisy member of the Opposition to Asiatic Turkey for six months There was an attempt, or an alleged attempt, of Clodius to have Pompey murdered; and there was street-fighting, so that Pompey was besieged, or pretended to be besieged, in his own house.

"We might as well seek to set a charivari to music as to write the history of this political witches' revel," says Mommsen, speaking of the state of Rome when Caesar was gone, Cicero banished, and Pompey supposed to be in the ascendant.[284] There was, at any rate, quarrelling between Clodius and Pompey, in the course of which Pompey was induced to consent to Cicero's return.

Then Clodius took upon himself, in revenge, to turn against the Triumvirate altogether, and to repudiate even Caesar himself.