Chapter text=Q FR:book=2:letter=1

TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS (IN SARDINIA) ROME (10 DECEMBER)

The letter which you have already read I had sent off in the morning. But Licinius was polite enough to call on me in the evening after the senate had risen, that, in case of any business having been done there, I might, if I thought good, write an account of it to you. The senate was fuller than I had thought possible in the month of December just before the holidays. Of us consulars there were P. Servilius, M. Lucullus, Lepidus, Volcatius, Glabrio: the two consuls-designate; the praetors. We were a really full house: two hundred in all. Lupus had excited some interest. He raised the question of the Campanian land in considerable detail. He was listened to in profound silence. You are not unaware what material that subject affords. He omitted none of the points which I had made in this business. There were some sharp thrusts at Caesar, some denunciations of Gellius, some appeals to the absent Pompey. After concluding his speech at a late hour, he said that he would not ask for our votes lest he might burden us with a personal controversy; he quite understood the sentiments of the senate from the denunciations of past times and the silence on the present occasion. Milo spoke. Lupus begins the formula of dismissal, when Marcellinus says: " Don't infer from our silence, Lupus, what we approve or disapprove of at this particular time. As far as I am concerned, and I think it is the same with the rest, I am only silent because I do not think it suitable that the case of the Campanian land should be debated in Pompey's absence." Then Lupus said that he would not detain the senate. Racilius rose and began bringing before the house the case of the pro-posed prosecutions. He calls upon Marcellinus, of course, first; who, after complaining in serious tones of the Clodian incendiaries, massacres, and stonings, proposed a resolution that "Clodius himself should, under the superintendence of the praetor urbanus, have his jury allotted to him; that the elections should be held only when the allotment of jurors had been Completed; that whoever stopped the trials would be acting against the interests of the state." The proposal having been received with warm approval, Gaius Cato —as did also Cassius—spoke against it, with very emphatic murmurs of disapprobation on the part of the senate, when he proposed to hold the elections before the trials. Philippus supported Lentulus. After that Racilius called on me first of the unofficial senators for my opinion. I made a long speech upon the whole story of P. Clodius's mad proceedings and murderous violence: I impeached him at considerable length, and, by Hercules with no little as though he were on his trial, amidst frequent murmurs of approbation from the whole senate. My speech was praised oratorical skill by Antistius Vetus, who also supported the priority of the legal proceedings, and declared that he should consider it of the first importance. The senators were crossing the floor in support of this view, when Clodius, being called on, began trying to talk out the sitting. He spoke in furious terms of having been attacked by Racilius in an unreasonable and discourteous manner. Then his roughs on the Graecostasis and the steps of the house suddenly raised a pretty loud shout, in wrath, I suppose, against Q. Sextilius and the other friends of Milo. At this sudden alarm we broke up with loud expressions of indignation on all sides. Here are the transactions of one day for you: the rest, I think, will be put off to January. Of all the tribunes I think Racilius is by far the best: Antistius also seems likely to be friendly to me: Plancius, of course, is wholly ours. Pray, if you love me, be careful and cautious about sailing in December.