Then, in July, an unusually well-attended meeting of the Senate called on the Consuls and magistrates to prepare legislation for Cicero’s recall. No Tribune vetoed the proposal and Clodius was the only one to speak against it. Except for Clodius’s brother Appius and two Tribunes (“bought at auction,” as the word went), the entire magistracy came together behind a motion to repeal the law that had banished Cicero. No reference was made to the general measure condemning the execution of Roman citizens without trial, which had in fact precipitated Cicero’s hurried departure from Rome. The assumption now was that it simply did not apply to him.
The campaign accelerated. Thanks largely to lobbying by Pompey, all kinds of institutions—town councils, associations of tax farmers, craft guilds—passed resolutions in favor of recall. Pompey instructed his veterans to attend the Military Assembly, which was held in Rome on the Field of Mars in August. The most important men in the State, led by Pompey, addressed the meeting, which was guarded by Milo’s gangs and teams of gladiators. Senior Senators superintended the voting. The bill was passed triumphantly.
Apart from his appearance at the Senate, there is no record of where Clodius spent his time during these weeks. His career shows that he was no coward and he is likely to have made his presence felt in some way, if not directly on the Field of Mars. He had suffered a serious setback, but he soon demonstrated that he was by no means routed.
In Greece Cicero’s moods had been seesawing between pessimism and elation. Some months earlier he had written to Atticus: “From your letter and from the facts themselves I see that I am utterly finished.” Now he had every justification for euphoria. AS the news improved, he decided it was safe to leave boring Thessalonica and stay somewhere closer to Italy. He moved to Dyrrachium, a port on the Adriatic Sea, which was only a few days’ sail to Brundisium; he was “patron” of the town and had “warm friends” among the townsfolk. Confident enough to anticipate the outcome of events in Rome, he set sail before the vote was taken and arrived on Italian soil on the Nones of August. It was an auspicious day, for it happened to be the anniversary of Brundisium’s foundation. The town was en fête and Cicero’s arrival added an excitingly topical dimension to the civic celebrations. Even more joyfully, it was Tullia’s birthday and she was there to greet him. In her early twenties and as always the apple of his eye, she was now a widow. Her first husband, Calpurnius Piso, had recently died—from what cause is unknown. Although it had been an arranged marriage, the union had been a happy one.
Cicero’s journey up Italy and his reception in Rome were as close to a Triumph as a nonmilitary man could aspire to. There were massive demonstrations in his favor and he said later that Italy had taken him on its shoulders and carried him back to Rome. He described it all in a long, excited letter to Atticus. Official delegations came out to meet him from every township and gave him “the most flattering marks of regard.” AS usual he overreacted: speaking a few days later, he said that their decrees and votes of congratulation and confidence were like a ladder “by which I did not simply return home but climbed up to heaven.” When he reached the outskirts of Rome on September 4, almost everybody on his list of VIPS turned out to welcome him. Only his enemies stayed away. At the Capena Gate the steps of the temples were packed with ordinary citizens who greeted Cicero with loud applause. The Forum and Capitol were filled with “spectacular” crowds.
It was a great moment, but Cicero already detected difficulties ahead. He suspected disaffection among the aristocrats, whom he still blamed for his misfortunes. “It is a sort of second life I am beginning. Already, now that I am here, secret resentment and open jealousy are setting in among those who championed me when I was away.”
The day after his arrival Cicero gave a speech in the Senate before later offering his thanks briefly to the People. It was not one of his most brilliant performances. The speech was little more than a list, larded with invective, of those whom he believed to have betrayed him, contrasted with praise for those who had helped secure his return. He described Gabinius, one of the two Consuls of 58 who had refused to lift a finger on his behalf, as “heavy with wine, somnolence and debauchery, with hair well-oiled and neatly braided, with drooping eyes and slobbering mouth.” AS for his colleague Calpurnius Piso, “talking with him is much the same as holding a discussion with a wooden post in the Forum … a dull and brutish clod … profligate, filthy and intemperate.” On the credit side of the account, pride of place went to Pompey, “whose courage, fame and achievements are unparalleled in the records of any nation or any age.” It was the first indication that, far from being an independent political operator as he had tried to be in the past, Cicero was now, in effect, a creature of the First Triumvirate.
Meanwhile, Clodius had been busy. He was not finished with Cicero. For some time there had been a growing food shortage, exacerbated by Clodius’s extension of the free corn dole to the urban poor. He now spread it about that a sudden scarcity during the past few weeks was all Cicero’s fault. There was a riot and stones were thrown at Consul Metellus Nepos. Cicero reacted firmly and immediately. In the Senate he proposed Pompey for a special commission to take charge of grain supplies. A decree authorizing the preparation of appropriate legislation was passed. Cicero was delighted at having outmaneuvered Clodius so quickly and comprehensively. “The decree was read out immediately,” he told Atticus, “and the People applauded in the silly new fashion by chanting my name.”
The following day the Consuls drafted a law giving Pompey control over grain supplies for five years. He asked for fifteen Lieutenant-Commissioners, one of whom was to be Cicero (who accepted, typically, on condition that he would not have to leave Rome). The special command was agreed and Pompey left Rome at once to relieve the shortage, which he did with his customary efficiency.
The Senate’s position was becoming increasingly weak. This was almost entirely its own fault, even if its blunders were not exclusively the products of stupidity. In the eyes of the Senate, the integrity of the constitution was at stake, and in particular the fundamental principle that no single member of the ruling class should be allowed to predominate. This was the cause for which the optimates had driven Pompey into the arms of Caesar and Crassus. Although Cicero was not such a powerful figure, they were ill-advised to alienate him, for his intelligent and flexible conservatism could have helped them to resist radical outsiders like Caesar and to attract Pompey into their camp by judicious concessions. The Senate acted in ways that made its worst fears likely to come to pass. It lost control of the domestic security situation and now found itself compelled to do what it most wanted to avoid: give yet another special command to Pompey.
Having plunged more or less successfully into the political melee, Cicero had some domestic worries to exercise him. His property was to be returned to him, but the question arose of compensation for the demolition of his house on the Palatine and of his country villas. He had been unable to work at the bar for a year and a half and was in urgent need of funds. Also there was the problem of the temple that Clodius had erected on the site of his home; unless the consecration could be annulled, rebuilding would be out of the question. The matter was put before the relevant religious authority, the College of Pontiffs.
Like the Senate, the College of Pontiffs wanted to avoid a full-scale confrontation with Clodius. It came up with a clever formulation which invalidated the consecration without discrediting its originator. At a meeting of the Senate on October 1, the College’s findings were discussed. Given the absence in Long-haired Gaul of the Chief Pontiff (who might well have taken a view less friendly to Cicero), a spokesman for the College emphasized that it saw its role as judge of the religious issue and that the Senate was judge of the law. Those Pontiffs who were also Senators then asked to speak in their latter capacity and did so on Cicero’s behalf. Clodius was present; after some futile filibustering, he saw that further opposition in the Senate would be pointless. On the following day a decree was passed and the Consuls, with the help of surveyors, proceeded to agree to a financial valuation of the house and villas. To Cicero’s annoyance, the house on the Palatine was estimated at 2 million sesterces (much less than the original purchase price of 3.5 million sesterces), the villa at Tusculum at 500,000 sesterces and the one at Formiae at 250,000 sesterces.