Cicero

And it is said that the people never passed any vote with such unanimity. The senate, too, vying with the people, wrote letters of thanks to all the cities which had ministered to Cicero during his exile, and decreed that his house and his villas, which Clodius had destroyed, should be restored at the public cost.[*](Cf. Cicero, in Pisonem, 22, 52. )

Thus Cicero came home in the sixteenth month after his exile; and so great was the joy of the cities and the eagerness of men to meet him that what was said by Cicero afterwards fell short of the truth. He said, namely, that Italy had taken him on her shoulders and carried him into Rome.[*](Cf. Cicero, post red. in sen. 15, 39. ) And there Crassus also, who was his enemy before his exile, now readily met him and was reconciled with him, to gratify his son Publius, as he said, who was an ardent admirer of Cicero.

After allowing only a short time to pass and watching for an opportunity when Clodius was absent from the city, Cicero went up with a great company to the capitol, and there tore away and destroyed the tablets of the tribunes, in which were the records of their administration. When Clodius brought charges against him for this and Cicero argued that it was illegal for Clodius to pass from the ranks of the patricians into the tribunate,[*](Clodius had secured an adoption into a plebeian family in order to become a candidate for the tribuneship. Cf. Cicero, pro domo sua, 29, 77. ) and that therefore none of his acts was valid, Cato was indignant and spoke against Cicero;

not that he approved of Clodius, nay, he was actually displeased at his political course, but he set forth that it was a strange and violent measure for the senate to vote the abrogation of so many acts and decrees, among which were those for his own administration in Cyprus and Byzantium. This led to an antagonism between him and Cicero which came to no open manifestation, but made their friendly treatment of one another less marked.