val, and declared himself
ready to entertain and discuss proposals for alterations.
The corporation had now opportunity of convincing itself how foolishly
it had acted in driving Pompeius and the equites into the arms
of the adversary by refusing these requests. Perhaps it was
the secret sense of this, that drove the high-born lords to the most
vehement opposition, which contrasted ill with the calm demeanour
of Caesar. The agrarian law was rejected by them nakedly and even
without discussion. The decree as to the arrangements of Pompeius
in Asia found quite as little favour in their eyes. Cato attempted,
in accordance with the disreputable custom of Roman parliamentary
debate, to kill the proposal regarding the farmers of the taxes
by speaking, that is, to prolong his speech up to the legal hour
for closing the sitting; when Caesar threatened to have the stubborn
man arrested, this proposal too was at length rejected.

Proposals before the Burgesses

Of course all the proposals were now brought before the burgesses.
Without deviating far from the truth, Caesar could tell
the multitude that the senate had scornfully rejected most rational
and most necessary proposals submitted to it in the most respectful
form, simply because they came from the democratic consul.
When he added that the aristocrats had contrived a plot to procure
the rejection of the proposals, and summoned the burgesses,
and more especially Pompeius himself and his old soldiers, to stand
by him against fraud and force, this too was by no means a mere invention.
The aristocracy, with the obstinate weak creature Bibulus
and the unbending dogmatical fool Cato at their head, in reality
intended to push the matter to open violence. Pompeius, instigated
by Caesar to proclaim his position with reference to the pending
question, declared bluntly, as was not his wont on other occasions,
that if any one should venture to draw the sword, he too would
grasp his, and in that case would not leave the shield at home;
Crassus expressed himself to the same effect The old soldiers
of Pompeius were directed to appear on the day of the vote--
which in fact primarily concerned them--in great numbers,
and with arms under their dress, at the place of voting.

The nobility however left no means untried to frustrate the proposals
of Caesar. On each day when Caesar appeared before the people,
his colleague Bibulus instituted the well-known political observations
of th