How then are we to prove that Clodius laid a plot against Milo? It is quite sufficient in the case of such a wicked, of such an audacious monster as that, to prove that he had great reason to do so; that he had great hopes founded on Milo's death; that it would have been of the greatest service to him. Therefore, that maxim of Cassius, to see to whose advantage it was, may well have influence in respect of these persons. For although good men cannot be induced to commit crimes by any advantage whatever, wicked men often can by a very trifling one. And, if Milo were slain, Clodius gained this, not only that he should be praetor without having him for a consul, under whom he would not be able to commit any wickedness, but also that he should have those men for consuls while he was praetor, who, if they did not aid him, would at all events connive at all his proceedings to such an extent that he hoped he should be able to escape detection in all the frantic actions which he was contemplating; as they (so he argued to himself) would not even if they were able to do so, be anxious to check his attempts when they considered that they were under such obligations to him; and on the other hand, if they did wish to do so, perhaps they would hardly be able to crush the audacity of that most wicked man when it got strength by its long continuance. Are you, O judges, the only persons ignorant of all this? [33] Are you living in this city as ignorant of what passes as if you were visitors? Are your ears all abroad, do they keep aloof from all the ordinary topics of conversation of the city, as to what laws (if, indeed, they are to be called laws, and not rather firebrands to destroy the city, pestilences to annihilate the republic) that man was intending to impose upon all of us, to brand on our foreheads? Exhibit, I beg you, Sextus Clodius, produce, I beg, that copy of your laws which they say that you saved from your house, and from the middle of the armed band which threatened you by night and bore aloft, like another palladium, in order, forsooth, to be able to carry that splendid present that instrument for discharging the duties of the tribuneship, to some one, if you could obtain his election, who would discharge those duties according to your directions. And […] [he was going to divide the freedmen among all the tribes, and by his new law to add all the slaves who were going to be emancipated, but who had not yet received their freedom, so that they might vote equally with the free citizens.][8]
Would he have dared to make mention of this law, which Sextus Clodius boasts was devised by him, while Milo was alive, not to say while he was consul? For of all of us I cannot venture to say all that I was going to say. But you consider what enormous faults the law itself must have had, when the mere mention of it for the purpose of finding fault with it is so offensive. And he looked at me with the expression of countenance which he was in the habit of putting on when he was threatening everybody with every sort of calamity. That light of the senate-house moves me.[9] [cap.13]
What? do you suppose, O Sextus, that I am angry with you; I, whose greatest enemy you have punished with even much greater severity than my humanity could resolve to demand? You cast the bloody carcass of Publius Clodius out of the house, you threw it out into the public street, you left it destitute of all images, of all funeral rites, of all funeral pomp, of all funeral panegyric, half consumed by a lot of miserable dogs, to be torn to pieces by the dogs who nightly prowl about the streets. Wherefore, although in so doing you acted most impiously, still you were wreaking all your enemy on my enemy; though I cannot praise you, I certainly ought not to be angry with you. […]