excitement increased.  Two of the tribunes suggested that the body should be carried into the market-place, and placed on the hustings from which the speaker commonly addressed the people.  Then it was resolved, at the suggestion of another Clodius, a notary, and a client of the family, to do it a signal honor.  “Thou shalt not bury or burn a man within the city” was one of the oldest of Roman laws.  Clodius, the favorite of the people, should be an exception.  His body was carried into the Hall of Hostilius, the usual meeting-place of the Senate.  The benches, the tables, the platform from which the orators spoke, the wooden tablets on which the clerks wrote their notes, were collected to make a funeral pile on which the corpse was to be consumed.  The hall caught fire, and was burned to the ground; another large building adjoining it, the Hall of Porcius, narrowly escaped the same fate.  The mob attacked several houses, that of Milo among them, and was with difficulty repulsed.

It had been expected that Milo would voluntarily go into exile; but the burning of the senate-house caused a strong reaction of feeling of which he took advantage.  He returned to Rome, and provided to canvass for the consulship, making a present in money (which may be reckoned at five-and-twenty shillings) to every voter.  The city was in a continual uproar; though the time for the new consuls to enter on their office was long past, they had not even been elected, nor was there any prospect, such was the violence of the rival candidates, of their being so.  At last the Senate had recourse to the only man who seemed able to deal with the situation, and appointed Pompey sole consul.  Pompey proposed to institute for the trial of Milo’s case a special court with a special form of procedure.  The limits of the time which it was to occupy were strictly laid down.  Three days were to be given to the examination of witnesses, one to the speeches of counsel, the prosecution being allowed two hours only, the defense three.  After a vain resistance on the part of Milo’s friends, the proposal was carried, Pompey threatening to use force if necessary.  Popular feeling now set very strongly against the accused.  Pompey proclaimed that he went in fear of his life from his violence; refused to appear in the Senate lest he should be assassinated, and even left his house to live in his gardens, which could be more effectually guarded by soldiers.  In the Senate Milo was accused of having arms under his clothing, a charge which he had to disprove by lifting up his under garment.  Next a freedman came forward, and declared that he and four others had actually seen the murder of Clodius, and that having mentioned the fact, they had been seized and shut up for two months in Milo’s counting-house.  Finally a sheriff’s officer, if we may so call him, deposed that another important witness, one of Milo’s slaves, had been forcibly taken out of his hands by the partisans of the accused.