On the eighth of April the trial was begun.  The first witness called was a friend who had been with Clodius on the day of his death.  His evidence made the case look very dark against Milo, and the counsel who was to cross-examine him on behalf of the accused was received with such angry cries that he had to take refuge on the bench with the presiding judge.  Milo was obliged to ask for the same protection.

Pompey resolved that better order should be kept for the future, and occupied all the approaches to the court with troops.  The rest of the witnesses were heard and cross-examined without interruption.  April 11th was the last day of the trial.  Three speeches were delivered for the prosecution; for the defense one only, and that by Cicero.  It had been suggested that he should take the bold line of arguing that Clodius was a traitor, and that the citizen who slew him had deserved well of his country.  But he judged it better to follow another course, and to show that Clodius had been the aggressor, having deliberately laid an ambush for Milo, of whose meditated journey to Lanuvium he was of course aware.  Unfortunately for his client the case broke down.  Milo had evidently left Rome and the conflict had happened much earlier than was said, because the body of the murdered man had reached the capital not later than five o’clock in the afternoon.  This disproved the assertion that Clodius had loitered on his way back to Rome till the growing darkness gave him an opportunity of attacking his adversaries.  Then it came out that Milo had had in his retinue, besides the women and boys, a number of fighting men.  Finally there was the damning fact, established, it would seem, by competent witnesses, that Clodius had been dragged from his hiding-place and put to death.  Cicero too lost his presence of mind.  The sight of the city, in which all the shops were shut in expectation of a riot, the presence of the soldiers in court, and the clamor of a mob furiously hostile to the accused and his advocate, confounded him, and he spoke feebly and hesitatingly.  The admirable oration which has come down to us, and professes to have been delivered on this occasion, was really written afterwards.  The jury, which was allowed by common consent to have been one of the best ever assembled, gave a verdict of guilty.  Milo went into banishment at Marseilles—­a punishment which he seems to have borne very easily, if it is true that when Cicero excused himself for the want of courage which had marred the effect of his defense, he answered, “It was all for the best; if you had spoken better I should never have tasted these admirable Marseilles mullets.”

Naturally he tired of the mullets before long.  When Caesar had made himself master of Rome, he hoped to be recalled from banishment.  But Caesar did not want him, and preferred to have him where he was.  Enraged at this treatment, he came over to Italy and attempted to raise an insurrection in favor of Pompey.  The troops whom he endeavored to corrupt refused to follow him.  He retreated with his few followers into the extreme south of the peninsula, and was there killed.