But the appeal was in vain, or rather, as far as we can ascertain, was never made,—­at least in such powerful terms as those in which we read it.  The great advocate was wholly unmanned by the scene before him, grew nervous, and broke down utterly in his speech for the defence.  This presence of a military force under the orders of Pompey—­the man in whom he saw, as he hoped, the good genius of Rome—­overawed and disturbed him.  The speech which we read is almost certainly not that which he delivered, but, as in the previous case of Verres, the finished and elaborate composition of his calmer hours.  Milo was convicted by a large majority; in fact, there can be little doubt but that he was legally guilty, however political expediency might, in the eyes of Cicero and his party, have justified his deed.  Cato sat on the jury, and did all he could to insure an acquittal, showing openly his voting-paper to his fellow jurors, with that scorn of the “liberty of silence” which he shared with Cicero.

Milo escaped any worse penalty by at once going into voluntary banishment at Marseilles.  But he showed more practical philosophy than his advocate; for when he read the speech in his exile, he is said to have declared that “it was fortunate for him it was not spoken, or he should never have known the flavour of the red mullet of Marseilles”.

The removal of Clodius was a deliverance upon which Cicero never ceased to congratulate himself.  That “battle of Bovillae”, as he terms it, became an era in his mental records of only less significance than his consulship.  His own public life continued to be honourable and successful.  He was elected into the College of Augurs, an honour which he had long coveted; and he was appointed to the government of Cilicia.  This latter was a greatness literally “thrust upon him”, and which he would gladly have declined, for it took him away in these eventful days from his beloved Rome; and to these grand opportunities for enriching himself he was, as has been said, honourably indifferent.  The appointment to a distant province was, in fact, to a man like Cicero, little better than an honourable form of exile:  it was like conferring on a man who had been, and might hope one day to be again, Prime Minister of England, the governor-generalship of Bombay.

One consolation he found on reaching his new government—­that even in the farthest wilds of Cilicia there were people who had heard of “the consul who saved Rome”.  And again the astonished provincials marvelled at a governor who looked upon them as having rights of their own, and neither robbed nor ill-used them.  He made a little war, too, upon some troublesome hill-tribes (intrusting the command chiefly to his brother Quintus, who had served with distinction under Caesar in Gaul), and gained a victory which his legions thought of sufficient importance to salute him with the honoured title of “imperator”.  Such military honours are especially flattering to men who, like