[24] When Publius Clodius had determined to distress the republic by all sorts of wickedness during his praetorship, and saw that the comitia were so delayed the year before, that he would not be able to continue his praetorship many months, as he had no regard to the degree of honour, as others have, but both wished to avoid having Lucius Paullus, a citizen of singular virtue, for his colleague, and also to have an entire year to mangle the republic; on a sudden he abandoned his own year, and transferred himself to the next year, not from any religious scruple, but that he might have, as he said himself, a full and entire year to act as praetor, that is, to overthrow the republic.