Clodius had no luck when he tried to carry the war of prosecutions at law into the enemy's camp. His accusation of Milo before the people came to nothing, and a charge of rioting which he brought before a jury against Sestius, whom we have seen as tribune exerting himself to procure Cicero's restoration, led to a signal triumph for Clodius' opponents. The occasion brought Cicero at once to Feb. 14, 56 B.C.the front. "Sestius was unwell," he writes to his brother[1]; "I went straight to his house, and placed myself, as I was bound to do, entirely at his disposal. This, however, was more than people expected of me, for they thought that I had good reasons for being vexed with Sestius. So both he and the public consider that I have behaved like a kind friend and a grateful man, and I mean to act up to the character."
Cicero nobly redeemed this pledge, and his speech for Sestius remains as an admirable specimen of forensic oratory applied to a State trial. The story of Sestius' tribunate, of his labours crowned at last with success in Cicero's cause, and of the desperate lawlessness, with which he had to contend, is set forth with every grace of language and Mar. 11, 56 B.C.every force of argument. The jury responded readily to Cicero's appeal, and Sestius was acquitted by an absolutely unanimous vote.
Among the witnesses for the prosecution in this case was Publius Vatinius, the same who as tribune, in 59 B.C., had passed the law which gave Cæsar his command in Gaul. Cicero availed himself of the- ↑ Ad Q. F., ii., 3, 5.
