Later on we frequently
hear of their being used as private soldiery, and the government in
the last years of the Republic ceased to be able to control them.[358]
Again, in defending Sestius, Cicero asserts that Clodius in his
tribunate had organised a levy of slaves under the name of collegia,
for purposes of violence, slaughter, and rapine; and even if this
is an exaggeration, it shows that such proceedings were not deemed
impossible.[359] And apart from the actual use of slaves for
revolutionary objects, or as private body-guards, it is clear from
Cicero's correspondence that as an important part of a great man's
retinue they might indirectly have influence in elections and on
other political occasions. Quintus Cicero, in his little treatise on
electioneering,[360] urges his brother to make himself agreeable to
his tribesmen, neighbours, clients, freedmen, and even slaves, "for
nearly all the talk which affects one's public reputation emanates
from domestic sources." And Marcus himself, in the last letter he
wrote before he fled into exile in 58, declares that all his friends
are promising him not only their own aid, but that of their clients,
freedmen, and slaves,--promises which doubtless might have been kept
had he stayed to take advantage of them.
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