Caesar's party, therefore, being alarmed, had
recourse to violence, and first of all a basket of ordure was thrown
upon Bibulus as he was going down to the Forum, and then the people
fell on his lictors and broke the fasces; finally missiles being
thrown about, and many being wounded, all the rest ran away from the
Forum except Cato, who walked away slowly, every now and then turning
round and cursing the citizens. Accordingly Caesar's partisans not only
passed the law for the distribution of land,[703] but they added to it
a clause to compel all the Senate to swear that they would maintain
the law, and give their aid against any one who should act contrary to
it, and they enacted heavy penalties against those who did not swear.
All swore to maintain the law under compulsion, bearing in mind what
befell Metellus of old, whom the people allowed to be driven from[704]
Italy because he would not swear to observe a like enactment. For this
reason the women of Cato's family with tears earnestly entreated him
to yield and take the oath, and also his friends and intimate
acquaintance. But the person who most persuaded and induced Cato to
take the oath was Cicero the orator, who argued and urged that perhaps
it was not even right for him to think that he was the only man who
ought to refuse obedience to what had been determined by the common
voice; and when it was impossible to undo what had been done, it was
altogether senseless and mad to have no regard for himself; and of all
evils, he argued, it was the greatest to give up and surrender the
state, to the interests of which all his actions were directed, to
those who were plotting against it, as if he were glad to be released
from all struggles in its behalf; for if Cato did not stand in need of
Rome, Rome stood in need of Cato, and all his friends also did; and
among them Cicero said that he was the first, being the object of the
designs of Clodius, who was clearly proceeding to attack him by means
of the tribunitian office.
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