assembly to make diligent use
of this privilege of expressing their opinion now while they were
still allowed to do so; when the tribune of the people
Gaius Ateius Capito consigned Crassus on his departure for Syria,
with all the formalities of the theology of the day, publicly
to the evil spirits. These were, on the whole, vain demonstrations
of an irritated minority; yet the little party from which they issued
was so far of importance, that it on the one hand fostered and gave
the watchword to the republican opposition fermenting in secret,
and on the other hand now and then dragged the majority of the senate,
which ithal cherished at bottom quite the same sentiments with reference
to the regents, into an isolated decree directed against them.
For even the majority felt the need of giving vent, at least
sometimes and in subordinate matters to their suppressed indignation,
and especially--after the manner of those who are servile
with reluctance--of exhibiting their resentment towards the great foes
in rage against the small. Wherever it was possible, a gentle blow
was administered to the instruments of the regents; thus Gabinius
was refused the thanksgiving-festival that he asked (698);
thus Piso was recalled from his province; thus mourning was put on
by the senate, when the tribune of the people Gaius Cato hindered
the elections for 699 as long as the consul Marcellinus belonging
to the constitutional party was in office. Even Cicero, however humbly
he always bowed before the regents, issued an equally envenomed
and insipid pamphlet against Caesar's father-in-law. But both these
feeble signs of opposition by the majority of the senate
and the ineffectual resistance of the minority show only
the more clearly, that the government had now passed from the senate
to the regents as it formerly passed from the burgesses to the senate;
and that the senate was already not much more than a monarchical
council of state employed also to absorb the anti-monarchical
elements. "No man," the adherents of the fallen government complained,
"is of the slightest account except the three; the regents
are all-powerful, and they take care that no one shall remain
in doubt about it; the whole senate is virtually transformed
and obeys the dictators; our generation will not live to see
a change of things." They were living in fact no longer
under the republic, but under monarchy.

Continued Oppositon at the Elections

But if the g