over their
leaders? I had ten thousand times rather be reconciled with Pompey on
any terms whatever or suffer any other conceivable fate than do anything
unworthy of my native thought or of my own deliberate policy. Are you
unaware that it is not sovereignty or gain that I desire and that I am
not bent upon accomplishing anything absolutely, an at any cost, so that
I would lie and flatter and fawn upon people to this end? Will you give
up, then, for these reasons the campaign, O what can I call you? Yet
still it shall be not as you yourselves desire and say but as is
profitable for the commonwealth and for myself."

After this speech he distributed lots among them for the infliction of
the death penalty, and the most audacious,--for these, as was previously
arranged, drew the lots,--he condemned, and the rest he dismissed,
saying he had no further need of them. And they repented of what they
had done and were ready to renew the campaign.

[-36-] While he was still on the way Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, the man who
later became a member of the triumvirate, in his capacity of praetor took
counsel with the people to elect Caesar dictator and immediately moved
his nomination, contrary to ancestral custom. The latter accepted the
office as soon as he entered the city, but committed no act of terror
while in it. On the contrary he granted a return to all the exiles
except Milo, and filled the offices for the ensuing year: at that time
they had chosen no one temporarily in place of the absentees, and
whereas there was no aedile in town, the tribunes exercised all the
functions pertaining to the aedileship: moreover he set up priests in the
places of those who were lost (though not observing all the detailed
ceremonies that were customary for them at such a juncture), and to the
Gauls who live this side of the Alps and beyond the Po he gave
citizenship because he had once governed them. After effecting this he
resigned the name of dictator, for he had quite all the power and
functions of the position constantly in his grasp. He employed the
strength that is afforded by arms, and also got in addition a
quasi-legal authority from the senate that was on the spot; for he was
permitted to do with impunity whatever he might wish.

[-37-] Having obtained this he at once set aright an affair of great
moment and necessity. The money lenders had exacted money quite
relentlessly from some, who needed large funds on account of the
politica