ngs, as the majority of men are wont to be
bold until they come in sight and have a taste of dangers. When, however,
he arrived in the suburbs, they were alarmed, and first some of the
senators, later many of the people, went over to his side. Thereupon
the praetors also came down from Janiculum and surrendered to him their
soldiers and themselves. Thus Caesar took possession of the city without a
blow and was appointed consul also by the people, though two proconsuls
were chosen to hold the elections; it was impossible, according to
precedent, for an interrex to be created for so short a period merely to
superintend the comitia, because many men who held the curule offices
were absent from the city. They endured having the two proconsuls named
by the praetor urbanus rather than to have the consuls elected under his
direction, because now these proconsular officials would limit their
activities to the elections and consequently would appear to have been
invested with no powers outlasting them.[23] This was of course done
under pressure of arms. Caesar, that he might appear to not to have used
any force upon them, did not enter the assembly,--as if it was his
presence that any one feared instead of his power.

[-46-] Thus he was chosen consul, and there was given him as a
fellow-official--perhaps one ought to say _under_-official--Quintus
Pedius. He was very proud of this fact that he was to be consul at an
earlier age than it had ever been the lot of any one else, and further
that on the first day of the elections, when he had entered the Campus
Martius, he saw six vultures, and later while haranguing the soldier
twelve others. For, comparing it with Romulus and the omen that had
befallen the latter, he began to expect that he should obtain his
sovereignty. He did not, however, simply on the ground that he had
already been given the distinction of the consular honors, assume
distinction as being consul for the second time. This custom was since
then observed in all similar cases to our own day. The emperor Severus
was the first to change it; for he honored Plautianus with the consular
honors and afterward introduced him to the senate and appointed him
consul, proclaiming that he was entering the consulship the second time.
In imitation of him the same thing was done in other instances. Caesar,
accordingly, arranged affairs in general in the city to suit his taste,
and gave money to the soldiers, to some what had been vot