. There yet remained the aristocratic party, which had wealth
and prestige and power, and the popular party, which aimed to take these
privileges away, but which was ruled by demagogues more unprincipled than
the old nobility. Pompey represented the one, and Caesar the other, though
both were nobles.

Both these generals had rendered great services. Pompey had subdued the
East, and Caesar the West. Pompey had more prestige, Caesar more genius.
Pompey was a greater tactician, Caesar a greater strategist. Pompey was
proud, pompous, jealous, patronizing, self-sufficient, disdainful. Caesar
was politic, intriguing, patient, lavish, unenvious, easily approached,
forgiving, with great urbanity and most genial manners. Both were
ambitious, unscrupulous, and selfish. Cicero distrusted both, flattered
each by turns, but inclined to the side of Pompey as more conservative,
and less dangerous. The Senate took the side of Pompey, the people that of
Caesar. Both Caesar and Pompey had enjoyed power so long, that neither would
have been contented with private life.

(M1012) In the year B.C. 49, Caesar's proconsular imperium was to terminate
one year after the close of the Gallic war. He wished to be re-elected
consul, and also secure his triumph. But he could not, according to law,
have the triumph without disbanding the army, and without an army he would
not be safe at Rome, with so many enemies. Neither could he be elected
consul, according to the forms, while he enjoyed his imperium, for it had
long been the custom that no one could sue for the consulship at the head
of an army. He, therefore, could neither be consul nor enjoy a triumph,
legitimately, without disbanding his army. Moreover, the party of Pompey,
being then in the ascendant at Rome, demanded that Caesar should lay down
his imperium. The tribunes, in the interests of Caesar, opposed the decree
of the Senate; the reigning consuls threatened the tribunes, and they fled
to Caesar's camp in Cisalpine Gaul. It should, however, be mentioned, that
when the consul Marcellus, an enemy of Caesar, proposed in the Senate that
he should lay down his command, Curio, the tribune, whose debts Caesar had
paid, moved that Pompey should do the same; which he refused to do, since
the election of Caesar to the consulship would place the whole power of the
republic in his hands. Caesar made a last effort to avoid the inevitable
war, by proposing to the Senate to lay down his command, if Pomp