ed every opportunity of filling their
exchequer; in the case of the king of Egypt, for instance,
the decree of the people, which recognized him as legitimate ruler,(10)
was sold to him by the coalition at a high price, and in like manner
other dynasts and communities acquired charters and privileges
on this occasion.

Measures Adopted by the Allies for Their Security

The permanence of the arrangements made seemed also sufficiently
secured. The consulship was, at least for the next year, entrusted
to safe hands. The public believed at first, that it was destined
for Pompeius and Crassus themselves; the holders of power however
preferred to procure the election of two subordinate but trustworth
men of their party--Aulus Gabinius, the best among Pompeius' adjutants,
and Lucius Piso, who was less important but was Caesar's father-in-law--
as consuls for 696. Pompeius personally undertook to watch over Italy,
where at the head of the commission of twenty he prosecuted the execution
of the agrarian law and furnished nearly 20,000 burgesses,
in great part old soldiers from his army, with land in the territory
of Capua. Caesar's north-Italian legions served to back him
against the opposition in the capital. There existed no prospect,
immediately at least, of a rupture among the holders of power themselves.
The laws issued by Caesar as consul, in the maintenance of which
Pompeius was at least as much interested as Caesar, formed
a guarantee for the continuance of the breach between Pompeius
and the aristocracy--whose heads, and Cato in particular,
continued to treat these laws as null--and thereby a guarantee
for the subsistence of the coalition. Moreover, the personal bonds
of connection between its chiefs were drawn closer. Caesar had
honestly and faithfully kept his word to his confederates
without curtailing or cheating them of what he had promised,
and in particular had fought to secure the agrarian law proposed
in the interest of Pompeius, just as if the case had been his own,
with dexterity and energy; Pompeius was not insensible to upright
dealing and good faith, and was kindly disposed towards the man
who had helped him to get quit at a blow of the sorry part
of a suppliant which he had been playing for three years. Frequent
and familiar intercourse with a man of the irresistible amiableness
of Caesar did what was farther requisite to convert the alliance
of interests into an alliance of friendship. The res