XXXIX.  Cato’s arrival with the ships did not pass unobserved by the Romans, for all the magistrates and priests, and all the Senate and a great part of the people met him at the river, so that both the banks were covered, and Cato’s voyage upwards was not inferior to a triumph in show and splendour.  Yet it seemed to some to be a perverse and stubborn thing, that though the consuls and praetors were present, Cato neither landed to meet them nor stopped his course, but sweeping along the shore in a royal galley of six banks, he never stopped till he had moored his ships in the dockyard.  However, when the money was carried along through the Forum, the people were amazed[717] at the quantity, and the Senate assembling voted together with suitable thanks that an extraordinary praetorship[718] should be given to Cato, and that he should wear a dress with a purple border when he was present at the public spectacles.  Cato protested against both these distinctions, but he recommended the Senate to emancipate Nikias, the king’s steward, to whose care and integrity he bore testimony.  At that time Philippus, the father of Marcia, was consul, and in a manner the dignity and power of the office were transferred to Cato, for the colleague of Philippus[719] paid no less respect to Cato on account of his merit than on account of his relationship to Philippus.

XL.  When Cicero[720] had returned from the exile into which he was driven by Clodius, and was now a powerful man, he forcibly pulled down and destroyed in the absence of Clodius, the tribunitian tablets which Clodius had recorded and placed in the Capitol; and the Senate having been assembled about this business, and Clodius making it a matter of accusation, Cicero said that inasmuch as Clodius had been made tribune in an illegal manner, all that had been done during his tribunate and recorded ought to be ineffectual and invalid.  But Cato took exception to what Cicero said, and at length he rose and declared, that he was of opinion that there was nothing sound or good in any degree in the administration of Clodius, but that if any man was for rescinding all that Clodius had done in his tribunate, all his own measures relating to Cyprus were thereby rescinded, and his mission had not been legal, having been proposed by a man who was not legally tribune:  he maintained that Clodius had not been illegally elected tribune by virtue of being adopted out of the patrician body into a plebeian family, for the law allowed this; but if he had been a bad magistrate, like others, it was fitting to call to account the man who had done wrong, and not to annul the office which had been wronged also.  In consequence of this, Cicero was angry with Cato, and for a long time ceased all friendly intercourse with him:  however, they were afterwards reconciled.