[-14-]Such was the nature of the indictment which he then drew up against Cicero.  The latter understood what was going on and induced Lucius Ninnius Quadratus, a tribune, to oppose it all:  then Clodius, in fear lest a tumult and delay of some kind should arise as a result, outwitted him by deceit.  He made arrangements with Cicero beforehand to bring no indictment against him, if he, in turn, would not interfere with any of the measures under consideration; whereupon, while the latter and Ninnius were quiet, he secured the passage of the laws, and next proceeded against the orator.  Thus was the latter, who thought himself extremely wise, deceived on that occasion by Clodius,—­if we ought to say Clodius and not Caesar and his party.  For the law that Clodius proposed after this trick was not on its face enacted against Cicero (i.e. it did not contain his name), but against all those simply who put to death or had put to death any citizen without the condemnation of the populace; yet in fact it was drawn up as strongly as possible against that one man.

It brought within its scope, indeed, all the senate, because they had charged the consuls with the protection of the city, by which act it was permitted the latter to take such steps, and subsequently had voted to condemn Lentulus and the rest who at that time suffered the death penalty.  Cicero, however, incurred the responsibility alone or most of all, because he had laid information against them and had each time made the proposition and put the vote and had finally seen to their execution by the agents entrusted with such business.  For this reason he took vigorous retaliatory measures, and discarding senatorial dress went about in the garb of the knights, paying court meanwhile, as he went back and forth, day and night alike to all who had any influence, not only of his friends but also of his opponents, and especially to Pompey and Caesar, inasmuch as they did not show their enmity toward him. [-15-] In their anxiety not to appear by their own action to have set Clodius on or to be pleased with his measures, they devised the following way, which suited them admirably and was obscure to their foe, for deceiving Cicero.  Caesar advised him to yield, for fear he might perish if he remained where he was:  and in order to have it believed the more readily that he was doing this through good will, he promised that the other should employ him as helper, so that he might retire from Clodius’s path not with reproach and as if under examination, but in command and with honor.

Pompey, however, turned him aside from this course, calling the act outright desertion, and uttering insinuations against Caesar to the effect that through enmity he was not giving sound advice; for his own counsel, as expressed, was for Cicero to remain and come to the aid of the senate and himself with outspokenness, and to defend himself immediately against Clodius:  the latter, he declared, would not be able to accomplish