222
The First Triumvirate.
[59 B.C.
armed members of the commonwealth. The only notice which he took of the demonstrations in the theatre was to hint to the Knights that, unless they behaved themselves, he would take away their reserved seats, and to the populace that, if they hissed the wrong men, he would cut off the distribution of corn.[1] Pompey on the other hand felt his conscience uneasy and his position awkward. "I must inform you,"[2] Cicero writes to Atticus about the month of August, Aug., 59 B.C."that our friend, the Great Bashaw, is heartily sick of the state of affairs and is anxious to recover the position from which he has fallen; he confides his distress to me and openly begs me to suggest a remedy, which for my part I am wholly unable to do."
Meanwhile the triumvirs made their arrangements for the magistracies of the next year. They put into the consulship Pompey's old adherent Gabinius, and along with him Piso, whose daughter Calpurnia was lately married to Cæsar. At the same time Clodius was elected tribune. Since his adoption he had been playing strange pranks. In the month of April we find him announcing that he will stand for the tribuneship as an opponent of the triumvirs and with the intention of cancelling Cæsar's laws. "In that case," retorted the chief pontiff and the officiating augur, "we shall deny that we ever made a plebeian of you."[3] His sister Clodia, the terrible beauty of Rome, with whom Atticus was on very