POMPEY. HI

his time to her, and passed his days in her- company in country-houses and gardens, paying no heed to what was going on in the forum. . Insomuch that Clodius, who was then tribune of the people, began to despise him, and en- gage in the most audacious attempts. For when he had banished Cicero, and sent, away Cato into Cyprus under pretence of military duty, and when Coesar was gone upon his expedition to Gaul, finding the populace now looking to him as the leader who did every thing accord- ing to their pleasure, he attempted forthwith to repeal some of Pompey's decrees ; he took Tigranes, the captive, out of prison, and kept him about him as his companion ; and commenced actions against several of Pompey's friends, thus designing to try the extent of his power. At last, upon a time when Pompey was present at the hearing of a certain cause, Clodius, accompanied with a crowd of profligate and impudent ruffians, standing up in a place above the rest, put questions to the populace as follows : " Who is the dissolute general ? who is the man that seeks another man ? who scratches his head with one finger ? " and the rabble, upon the signal of his shaking his gown, with a great shout to every question, like singers making- responses in a chorus, made answer, " Pompey." This indeed was no small annoyance to Pompey, who was quite unaccustomed to hear any thing ill of himself, and unexperienced altogether in such encounters; and he was yet more vexed, when he saw that the senate re- joiced at this foul usage, and regarded it as a just punish- ment upon him for his treachery to Cicero. But when it came even to blows and wounds in the forum, and that one of Clodius's bondslaves was apprehended, creeping through the crowd towards Pompey with a sword in his hand, Pompey laid hold of this pretence, though perhaps otherwise apprehensive of Clodius's insolence and bad

language, and never appeared again in the forum during