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15Now these men, indeed, did not wish to appear to have instigated Clodius themselves, or even to be pleased with his measures, and so they devised the following plan, involving no discredit to themselves but obscure to Cicero, for deceiving him. 2Caesar, for his part, advised him to yield, for fear he might lose his life if he remained in the city; and in order to have it believed the more readily that he was doing this through good-will, he promised to employ him as his lieutenant, so that he might retire out of Clodius’ way, not in disgrace, as if under investigation, but in a position of command and with honour. 3Pompey, however, tried to turn him aside from this course, calling the act outright desertion, and uttering insinuations against Caesar to the effect that through enmity he was not giving sound advice; as for himself, he advised him to remain and boldly defend both himself and the senate and thus avenge himself at once upon Clodius. 4The latter, he declared, would not be able to accomplish anything with Cicero present and confronting him, and would furthermore meet his deserts, since he, Pompey, would also coöperate to this end. Now when these two expressed themselves thus, not because their views were opposed, but for the purpose of deceiving their victim without arousing his suspicion, Cicero attached himself to Pompey. 5Of him he had no previous suspicion and was absolutely confident of being saved by his assistance. For in the first place, many respected and honoured him as one who saved numerous persons in grave peril, some from the judges and others from their very accusers; 6and Clodius, in particular, had formerly been a relative of Pompey’s and had long served under him, so that it seemed likely that he would do nothing that failed to accord with his wishes. As for Gabinius, Cicero supposed he could count on him absolutely as an adherent, since he was a good friend of his, and equally on Piso, because of his amiability as well as his kinship with Caesar.
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