and increased his
reputation, being elevated by his exploits to an equality with the
victories of Pompeius; also laying hold of pretexts, some furnished by
the conduct of Pompeius himself, and others by the times and the
disordered state of the administration at Rome, owing to which, those
who were candidates for magistracies placed tables in public and
shamelessly bribed the masses, and the people being hired went down to
show their partisanship not with votes on behalf of their briber, but
with bows and swords and slings. And after polluting the Rostra with
blood and dead bodies, they separated, leaving the city to anarchy,
like a ship carried along without a pilot, so that sensible men were
well content if matters should result in nothing worse than a monarchy
after such madness and such tempest. And there were many who even
ventured to say publicly that the state of affairs could only be
remedied by a monarchy, and that they ought to submit to this remedy
when applied by the mildest of physicians, hinting at Pompeius. But
when Pompeius in what he said affected to decline the honour, though
in fact he was more than anything else labouring to bring about his
appointment as dictator, Cato, who saw through his intention,
persuaded the Senate to appoint him sole consul, that he might not by
violent means get himself made dictator, and might be contented with a
mere constitutional monarchy. They also decreed an additional period
for his provinces: and he had two, Iberia[510] and all Libya, which he
administered by sending Legati and maintaining armies, for which he
received out of the public treasury a thousand talents every year.

XXIX. Upon this, Caesar began to canvass for a consulship by sending
persons to Rome, and also for a prorogation of the government of his
provinces. At first Pompeius kept silent, but Marcellus[511] and
Lentulus opposed his claim, for they hated Caesar on other grounds, and
they added to what was necessary what was not necessary, to dishonour
and insult him. For they deprived of the citizenship the inhabitants
of Novum Comum[512] a colony lately settled by Caesar in Gaul; and
Marcellus, who was consul, punished with stripes one of the Senators
of Novum Comum who had come to Rome, and added too this insult, "That
he put these marks upon him to show that he was not a Roman," and he
told him to go and show them to Caesar. After the consulship of
Marcellus, when Caesar had now profusely poured for