of Caesar's return from Spain. Pompey--who had returned the
year before--was at enmity with the senate on account of the
difficulties raised to the confirmation of his _acta_ and the allotments
for his veterans. Caesar had a grievance because of the difficulties put
in the way of his triumph. The two coalesced, taking in the millionaire
Crassus, to form a triumvirate or coalition of three, with a view to
getting measures they desired passed, and offices for themselves or
their partisans. This was a great blow to Cicero, who clung feverously
to Pompey as a political leader, but could not follow him in a coalition
with Caesar: for he knew that the object of it was a series of measures
of which he heartily disapproved. His hope of seeing Pompey coming to
act as acknowledged leader of the Optimates was dashed to the ground. He
could not make up his mind wholly to abandon him, or, on the other hand,
to cut himself adrift from the party of Optimates, to whose policy he
had so deeply committed himself. Clodius was troubled by no such
scruples. Perhaps Caesar had given him substantial reasons for his change
of policy. At any rate, from this time forward he acts as an extreme
_popularis_--much too extreme, as it turned out, for Pompey's taste. As
a patrician his next step in the official ladder would naturally have
been the aedileship. But that peaceful office did not suit his present
purpose. The tribuneship would give him the right to bring forward
measures in the _comitia tributa_, such as he desired to pass, and would
in particular give him the opportunity of attacking Cicero. The
difficulty was that to become tribune he must cease to be a patrician.
He could only do that by being adopted into a plebeian gens. He had a
plebeian ready to do it in B.C. 59. But for a man who was _sui iuris_ to
be adopted required a formal meeting of the old _comitia curiata_, and
such a meeting required the presence of an augur, as well as some kind
of sanction of the pontifices. Caesar was Pontifex Maximus, and Pompey
was a member of the college of augurs. Their influence would be
sufficient to secure or prevent this being done. Their consent was, it
appears, for a time withheld. But Caesar was going to Gaul at the end of
his consulship, and desired to have as few powerful enemies at Rome
during his absence as possible. Still he had a personal feeling for
Cicero, and when it was known that one of Clodius's objects in seeking
to become a plebeian