the other laws issued by Caesar as consul had been constantly
described by them as null and void, and an opinion had been expressed
in the senate as early as Dec. 697 that it was necessary to cancel
them on account of their informalities. On the 6th April 698
the consular Cicero proposed in a full senate to put the consideration
of the Campanian land distribution in the order of the day
for the 15th May. It was the formal declaration of war;
and it was the more significant, that it came from the mouth
of one of those men who only show their colours when they think
that they can do so with safety. Evidently the aristocracy held
that the moment had come for beginning the struggle not with Pompeius
against Caesar, but against the -tyrannis- generally. What would
further follow might easily be seen. Domitius made no secret
that he intended as consul to propose to the burgesses
the immediate recall of Caesar from Gaul. An aristocratic restoration
was at work; and with the attack on the colony of Capua the nobility
threw down the gauntlet to the regents.

Conference of the Regents at Luca

Caesar, although receiving from day to day detailed accounts
of the events in the capital and, whenever military considerations
allowed, watching their progress from as near a point of his
southern province as possible, had not hitherto, visibly at least
interfered in them. But now war had been declared against him
as well as his colleague, in fact against him especially;
he was compelled to act, and he acted quickly. He happened
to be in the very neighbourhood; the aristocracy had not even
found it advisable to delay the rupture, till he should have again
crossed the Alps. In the beginning of April 698 Crassus
left the capital, to concert the necessary measures with his
more powerful colleague; he found Caesar in Ravenna. Thence
both proceeded to Luca, and there they were joined by Pompeius,
who had departed from Rome soon after Crassus (11 April),
ostensibly for the purpose of procuring supplies of grain
from Sardinia and Africa. The most noted adherents of the regents,
such as Metellus Nepos the proconsul of Hither Spain, Appius Claudius
the propraetor of Sardinia, and many others, followed them;
a hundred and twenty lictors, and upwards of two hundred senators
were counted at this conference, where already the new monarchical
senate was represented in contradistinction to the republican.
In every respect the decisive voi