34.2
Clodius, too, could not even hope to overthrow Cicero while Cato was at Rome, but since he was scheming for this above all else, when he had come into office he sent for Cato and made proposals to him. He said that he regarded Cato as the purest man of all the Romans, and that he was ready to prove this by his acts. Therefore, though many were soliciting the commission to Cyprus and the court of PtolemyA younger brother of Ptolemy Auletes the king of Egypt. and begging to be sent upon it, he thought Cato alone worthy of it, and therefore gladly offered him this favour.
34.3
But Cato cried out that the thing was a snare and an insult, not a favour, whereupon Clodius haughtily and contemptuously replied: Well, then, if you don’t think it a favour, you shall make the voyage as a punishment, and going at once before the people he got an edict passed sending Cato on the mission. Moreover, when Cato set out, Clodius gave him neither ship, soldier, nor assistant, except two clerks, of whom one was a thief and a rascal, and the other a client of Clodius.
34.4
And as if he had put a slight task upon him in the mission to Cyprus and Ptolemy, Clodius enjoined upon him besides the restoration of the exiles of Byzantium, being desirous that Cato should be out of his way as long as possible while he was tribune.
35.1
Subjected to such constraint as this, Cato advised Cicero, whose enemies were trying to banish him, not to raise a faction or plunge the city into war and bloodshed, but to yield to the necessities of the times, and so to become again a saviour of his country. He also sent Canidius, one of his friends, to Cyprus in advance,Cf. the Brutus, iii. 1. and tried to persuade Ptolemy to yield his kingdom without fighting, promising that his future life should not be without wealth and honour, since the Romans would give him a priesthood of the goddess in Paphos.
35.2
He himself, however, tarried at Rhodes, making his preparations and awaiting his answers.
