ounded, there was a general flight of all
except Cato and Domitius; for Cato held Domitius though he himself was
wounded in the arm, and urged him to stay and so long as there was
breath in them, not to give up the struggle for liberty against the
tyrants who showed how they would use their power, by making their
way to it through such acts of wrong.

XLII. Domitius, however, did not face the danger, but fled to his
house, upon which Pompeius and Crassus,[722] were elected. Yet Cato
did not give up the contest, but came forward as a candidate for a
praetorship, because he wished to have a strong position in his
struggles with them and not to be himself a private man while he was
opposing those who were in office. Pompeius and Crassus being afraid
of this, and considering that the praetorship by reason of Cato would
become a match for the consulship, in the first place on a sudden and
without the knowledge of many of the body, summoned the Senate, and
got a vote passed that those who were elected praetors should enter on
office forthwith and should not let the time fixed by law intervene,
during which time prosecutions were allowed of those who had bribed
the people. In the next place, now that they had by the vote of the
Senate made bribery free from all responsibility, they brought forward
their own tools and friends as candidates for the praetorship,
themselves giving the bribe-money, and themselves standing by while
the voting was going on. But when the merit and good name of Cato were
getting the superiority even over all this, the many for very shame
considering it a great crime by their votes to sell Cato, whom it were
even honourable to purchase for the state as praetor, and the tribe
which was first called voted for him, Pompeius all at once, falsely
saying he had heard thunder, dissolved the assembly, for it was the
custom of the Romans to view such tokens as inauspicious, and not to
ratify anything when there had been signs from heaven. Thereafter, by
employing excessive bribery and driving all the honest folks from the
Campus they brought about by violence that Vatinius should be elected
praetor instead of Cato. Upon this it is said that those who had given
their votes thus illegally and dishonestly, forthwith skulked away;
and a certain tribune forming on the spot a meeting of those who were
assembling together and expressing their dissatisfaction, Cato came
before them, and as if inspired by the gods, foret