ects to set aside not merely
oneof the monarchs, but the monarchy itself, which was in the course
of formation. Desperate as was the cause of the oligarchy, the offer
of Pompeius to become its ally was the most favourable arrangement
possible for it.

Their League with Pompeius

The conclusion of the alliance between Pompeius and the Catonian party
was effected with comparative rapidity. Already during the dictatorship
of Pompeius a remarkable approximation had taken place between them.
The whole behaviour of Pompeius in the Milonian crisis,
his abrupt repulse of the mob that offered him the dictatorship,
his distinct declaration that he would accept this office
only from the senate, his unrelenting severity against disturbers
of the peace of every sort and especially against the ultra-democrats,
the surprising complaisance with which he treated Cato
and those who shared his views, appeared as much calculated to gain
the men of order as they were offensive to the democrat Caesar.
On the other hand Cato and his followers, instead of combating
with their wonted sternness the proposal to confer the dictatorship
on Pompeius, had made it with immaterial alterations of form
their own; Pompeius had received the undivided consulship
primarily from the hands of Bibulus and Cato. While the Catonian party
and Pompeius had thus at least a tacit understanding as early
as the beginning of 702, the alliance might be held as formally
concluded, when at the consular elections for 703 there was elected
not Cato himself indeed, but--along with an insignificant man
belonging to the majority of the senate--one of the most decided
adherents of Cato, Marcus Claudius Marcellus. Marcellus was
no furious zealot and still less a genius, but a steadfast
and strict aristocrat, just the right man to declare war
if war was to be begun with Caesar. As the case stood,
this election, so surprising after the repressive measures
adopted immediately before against the republican opposition,
can hardly have occurred otherwise than with the consent,
or at least under the tacit permission, of the regent of Rome
for the time being. Slowly and clumsily, as was his wont,
but steadily Pompeius moved onward to the rupture.

Passive Resistance of Caesar

It was not the intention of Caesar on the other hand to fall out
at this moment with Pompeius. He could not indeed desire seriously
and permanently to share the ruling power with any colleague,
least