antly
blazing for seventy years and feeding on its own flame, was visibly
burning out and verging of itself to extinction. It was very doubtful
whether the attempt to arm the Italians for party interests
would now succeed, as it had succeeded with Cinna and Carbo.
If Pompeius exerted himself, how could he fail to effect
a revolution of the state, which was chalked out by a certain
necessity of nature in the organic development
of the Roman commonwealth?

Mission of Nepos to Rome

Pompeius had seized the right moment, when he undertook his mission
to the east; he seemed desirous to go forward. In the autumn
of 691, Quintus Metellus Nepos arrived from the camp of Pompeius
in the capital, and came forward as a candidate for the tribuneship,
with the express design of employing that position to procure
for Pompeius the consulship for the year 693 and more immediately,
by special decree of the people, the conduct of the war against
Catilina. The excitement in Rome was great. It was not
to be doubted that Nepos was acting under the direct or indirect
commission of Pompeius; the desire of Pompeius to appear in Italy
as general at the head of his Asiatic legions, and to administer
simultaneously the supreme military and the supreme civil power
there, was conceived to be a farther step on the way to the throne,
and the mission of Nepos a semi-official proclamation of the monarchy.

Pompeius in Relation to the Parties

Everything turned on the attitude which the two great political parties
should assume towards these overtures; their future position
and the future of the nation depended on this. But the reception
which Nepos met with was itself in its turn determined
by the then existing relation of the parties to Pompeius, which was
of a very peculiar kind. Pompeius had gone to the east as general
of the democracy. He had reason enough to be discontented
with Caesar and his adherents, but no open rupture had taken place.
It is probable that Pompeius, who was at a great distance and occupied
with other things, and who besides was wholly destitute of the gift
of calculating his political bearings, by no means saw through,
at least at that time, the extent and mutual connection
of the democratic intrigues contrived against him; perhaps even
in his haughty and shortsighted manner he had a certain pride
in ignoring these underground proceedings. Then there came the fact,
which with a character of the type of Pompeius ha