[21] Clodius happened to be coming from his own country-seat on horseback and he met Milo at Bovillæ. They merely exchanged hostile scowls and passed along; but one of Milo's servants attacked Clodius, either because he was ordered to do so or because he wanted to kill his master's enemy, and stabbed him through the back with a dagger. Clodius' groom carried him bleeding into a neighboring inn. Milo followed with his servants and finished him, -- whether he was still alive, or already dead, is not known, -- for, although he claimed that he had neither advised nor ordered the killing, he was not willing to leave the deed unfinished because he knew that he would be accused in any event. When the news of this affair was circulated in Rome, the people were thunderstruck, and they passed the night in the forum. When daylight came, the corpse of Clodius was displayed on the rostra. Some of the tribunes and the friends of Clodius and a great crowd with them seized it and carried it to the senate-house, either to confer honor upon it, as he was of senatorial birth, or as an act of contumely to the Senate for conniving at such deeds. There the more reckless ones collected the benches and chairs of the senators and made a funeral pile for him, which they lighted and from which the senate-house and many buildings in the neighborhood caught fire and were consumed with the corpse of Clodius.
The Civil Wars. Appian. Horace White. London. MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. 1899.
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