Caesar invited
Pompey and Crassus to meet him at Luca (_Lucca_) in the spring of B.C.
56. He reconciled them to each other, and arranged that they were to be
Consuls for the next year, and obtain provinces and armies, while he
himself was to have his government prolonged for another five years, and
to receive pay for his troops. On their return to Rome, Pompey and
Crassus became candidates for the Consulship; but Domitius Ahenobarbus,
supported by Cato and the aristocracy, offered a most determined
opposition. The Consul Lentulus Marcellinus likewise was resolved to use
every means to prevent their election; and, finding it impossible to
carry their election while Marcellinus was in office, they availed
themselves of the veto of two of the Tribunes to prevent the Consular
Comitia from being held this year. The elections, therefore, did not
take place till the beginning of B.C. 55, under the presidency of an
interrex. Even then Ahenobarbus and Cato did not relax in their
opposition; and it was not till the armed bands of Pompey and Crassus
had cleared the Campus Martius of their adversaries that they were
declared Consuls for the second time (B.C. 55).

They forthwith proceeded to carry into effect the compact that had been
made at Luca. They induced the Tribune C. Trebonius to bring forward two
bills, one of which gave the province of the two Spains to Pompey, and
that of Syria to Crassus; the other prolonged Caesar's government for
five years more, namely, from the 1st of January, B.C. 53, to the end of
the year 49. Pompey was now at the head of the state; and at the
expiration of his year of office would no longer be a private man, but
with the command of an army and in possession of the imperium. With an
army he felt sure of regaining his former influence. He had now
completed the theatre which he had been some time building, and, as a
means of regaining the popular favor, he resolved to open it with an
exhibition of games of unparalleled splendor and magnificence. The
building itself was worthy of the conqueror of the East. It was the
first stone theatre that had been erected at Rome, and was sufficiently
large to accommodate 40,000 spectators. The games exhibited lasted many
days. Five hundred African lions and eighteen elephants were killed. A
rhinoceros was likewise exhibited on this occasion for the first time.
Pompey sent an army into Spain under the command of his lieutenants, L.
Afranius and M. Petreius, whil