pril, B.C. 56, and
Cicero's change of policy.]

[Sidenote: Quintus Cicero in Gaul.]

The hope, however, of detaching Pompey from Caesar was dashed by the
meeting at Luca in April, B.C. 56, at which a fresh arrangement was made
for the mutual advantage of the triumvirs. Caesar got the promise of the
introduction of a law giving him an additional five years of command in
Gaul, with special privileges as to his candidature for the consulship
of B.C. 48; while Pompey and Crassus bargained for a second consulship
in B.C. 55, and the reversion of the Spains (to be held as a single
province) and Syria respectively, each for five years. The care taken
that none of the three should have _imperium_ overlapping that of the
others was indeed a sign of mutual distrust and jealousy. But the
bargain was made with sufficient approval of the members of the party
crowding Luca to secure its being carried out by the _comitia_. The
union seemed stronger than ever; and Cicero at length resolved on a
great change of attitude. Opposition to the triumvirs had been
abandoned, he saw, by the very party for whom he had been incurring the
enmity of Pompey and Caesar. Why should he hold out any longer? "Since
those who have no power," he writes to Atticus in April, "refuse me
their affection, let me take care to secure the affection of those who
have power. You will say, 'I could have wished that you had done so
before.' I know you did wish it, and that I have made a real ass of
myself."[13] This is the first indication in the letters of the change.
But it was soon to be publicly avowed. The opposition to the consulship
of Pompey and Crassus was so violent that no election took place during
B.C. 56, and they were only elected under the presidency of _interreges_
at the beginning of February, B.C. 55. But by the _lex Sempronia_ the
senate was bound to name the consular provinces--_i.e._, the provinces
to be governed by the incoming consuls after their year of
office--before the elections, and in his speech on the subject (_de
Provinciis Consularibus_), delivered apparently in July, B.C. 56,
Cicero, while urging that Piso and Gabinius should have successors
appointed to them in Macedonia and Syria, took occasion to announce and
defend his own reconciliation with Caesar, and to support his continuance
in the governorship of Gaul. Shortly afterwards, when defending the
citizenship of L. Cornelius Balbus, he delivered a glowing panegyric on
Pompey's c