40.2
Cato contradicted Cicero while he was speaking, and finally rose and said that, although he was wholly of the opinion that there was nothing sound or good in the administration of Clodius, still, if everything which Clodius had done while tribune were to be rescinded, then all his own proceedings in Cyprus would be rescinded, and his mission there had not been legal, since an illegal magistrate had obtained it for him; but it had not been illegal, he maintained, for Clodius to be elected tribune after a transfer from patrician to plebeian rank which the law allowed,Cf. chapter xxxiii. and if he had been a bad magistrate, like others, it was fitting to call to an account the man who had done wrong, and not to vitiate the office which had suffered from his wrong doing. In consequence of this speech Cicero was angry with Cato, and for a long time ceased friendly intercourse with him; afterwards, however, they were reconciled.Cf. the Cicero, xxxiv.
41.1
After this, Pompey and Crassus had a meeting with Caesar,At Luca, in 56 B.C. Cf. the Pompey, li.; the Caesar, xxi. who had come across the Alps, in which they laid a plan to canvass jointly for a second consulship, and, after they were established in the office, to get a vote passed giving to Caesar another term in his command, of the same duration as the first, and to themselves the largest provinces, money and military forces. This was a conspiracy for the division of the supreme power and the abolition of the constitution.
