oration
for the senate was nipped in the bud by the thought of Caesar's agent,
who might present a bill to him after the close of the sitting.
Consequently he vowed "in future to ask no more after right and honour,
but to strive for the favour of the regents," and "to be as flexible
as an ear-lap." They used him accordingly as--what he was good for--
an advocate; in which capacity it was on various occasions
his lot to be obliged to defend his very bitterest foes
at a higher bidding, and that especially in the senate,
where he almost regularly served as the organ of the dynasts
and submitted the proposals "to which others probably consented,
but not he himself"; indeed, as recognized leader of the majority
of the compliant, he obtained even a certain political importance.
They dealt with the other members of the governing corporation
accessible to fear, flattery, or gold in the same way as they had dealt
with Cicero, and succeeded in keeping it on the whole in subjection.

Cato and the Minority

Certainly there remained a section of their opponents, who at least
kept to their colours and were neither to be terrified nor to be won.
The regents had become convinced that exceptional measures,
such as those against Cato and Cicero, did their cause
more harm than good, and that it was a lesser evil to tolerate
an inconvenient republican opposition than to convert their opponents
into martyrs for the republic Therefore they allowed Cato to return
(end of 698) and thenceforward in the senate and in the Forum,
often at the peril of his life, to offer a continued opposition
to the regents, which was doubtless worthy of honour, but unhappily
was at the same time ridiculous. They allowed him on occasion
of the proposals of Trebonius to push matters once more
to a hand-to-hand conflict in the Forum, and to submit to the senate
a proposal that the proconsul Caesar should be given over
to the Usipetes and Tencteri on account of his perfidious conduct
toward those barbarians.(8) They were patient when Marcus Favonius,
Cato's Sancho, after the senate had adopted the resolution
to charge the legions of Caesar on the state-chest, sprang to the door
of the senate-house and proclaimed to the streets the danger
of the country; when the same person in his scurrilous fashion
called the white bandage, which Pompeius wore round his weak leg,
a displaced diadem; when the consular Lentulus Marcellinus,
on being applauded, called out to the