In the capital a dull winter was being prophesied. Only one gleam
was discoverable in the social twilight. The Progressives had
shipped Cato off to Cyprus and society was rid for one season of a
man with a tongue, who believed in economy when money was plentiful,
in sobriety when pleasure was multiform and in domestic fidelities
when escape was easy. But they had done irreparable mischief in
disposing more summarily of Cicero. With the Conservative leader
exiled to Greece and the Progressive leader himself taking the eagles
into Gaul the winter's brilliance was threatened with eclipse.
Pompey was left in Rome, but the waning of his political star, it
could not be denied, had dimmed his social lustre. Clodius, of course,
was in full swing, triumphant in Caesar's friendship and Cicero's
defeat, but if society was able to stomach him, he himself had the
audacious honesty to foregather in grosser companionship. Even
Lucullus, whose food and wine had come to seem a permanent refuge
amid political changes and social shifts, must now be counted out.
His mind was failing, and the beautiful Apollo dining room and
terraced gardens would probably never be opened again.

In view of the impending handicaps Clodia was especially anxious that
a dinner she was to give immediately on her return from Baiae in
mid-October should be a conspicuous success. During her husband's
consulship two years ago she had won great repute for inducing men
of all parties, officials, artists and writers, to meet in her house.
Last year, owing to Metellus's sickness and death, she had not done
anything on a large scale. This autumn she had come back determined
to reassume her position. She was unaffected by the old-fashioned
prejudice against widows entertaining and she had nothing to fear
from the social skill of this year's consuls.