[-54-] After this, the courts being convened in quiet, many were condemned on various charges, and, for the murder of Clodius, Milo among others though he had Cicero as a defender.  That orator, seeing Pompey and the soldiers contrary to custom in the court, was alarmed and overwhelmed with dread, so that he did not deliver any of the speech he had prepared, but after saying a few words with effort in a half-dead voice, was glad to retire.  This speech which is now supposed to have been delivered at that time in behalf of Milo he wrote some time later and at leisure, when he had recovered his courage.  There is also the following story about it.  When Milo, in banishment, made the acquaintance of the speech sent to him by Cicero, he wrote back saying that it was lucky for him those words had not been spoken in that form in the court; for he would not be eating such fine mullets in Massilia (where he was passing his exile), if any such defence had been made.  This he wrote, not because he was pleased with his circumstances,—­he made many ventures to secure his return,—­but as a joke on Cicero, because after saying nothing important at the time of the defence he later both practiced and sent to him these fruitless words, as if they could now be of any service to him.

[-55-] In this way Milo was convicted; and so were Rufus and Plancus, as soon as they had finished their term of office, together with numerous others on account of the burning of the senate-house.  Plancus was not even benefited by Pompey, who was so earnest in his behalf that he sent to the court a volume containing both a eulogy of the prisoner and a supplication for him.  Marcus Cato, who was eligible to sit as a juryman, said he would not allow the eulogizer to destroy his own laws.  But he got no opportunity to cast his vote; for Plancus rejected him, feeling sure that he would give his voice for condemnation:  (by the laws of Pompey each of the parties to a suit was allowed to set aside five out of the number that were to judge him;) the other jurors, however, voted against him, especially as it did not seem right to them after they had condemned Rufus to acquit Plancus, who was on trial on the same charge.  And when they saw Pompey cooeperating with him, they showed the more zeal against him, for fear they might be thought to be absolute slaves of his rather than jurymen.  It should be said that on this occasion, too, Cicero accused Plancus no better than he had defended Milo:  for the appearance of the courtroom was the same, and Pompey in each case was planning and acting against him,—­a circumstance that naturally led to a second collision between them.