election to the consulate down to
his entering on office. Whether Caesar was in earnest with these
astonishing concessions and had confidence that he should be able
to carry through his game against Pompeius even after granting
so much, or whether he reckoned that those on the other side
had already gone too far to find in these proposals of compromise
more than a proof that Caesar regarded his cause itself as lost,
can no longer be with certainty determined. The probability is,
that Caesar committed the fault of playing a too bold game, far worse
rather than the fault of promising something which he was not minded
to perform; and that, if strangely enough his proposals had been
accepted, he would have made good his word.

Last Debate in the Senate

Curio undertook once more to represent his master in the lion's den.
In three days he made the journey from Ravenna to Rome.
When the new consuls Lucius Lentulus and Gaius Marcellus the younger(25)
assembled the senate for the first time on 1 Jan. 705, he delivered
in a full meeting the letter addressed by the general to the senate.
The tribunes of the people, Marcus Antonius well known
in the chronicle of scandal of the city as the intimate friend
of Curio and his accomplice in all his follies, but at the same time
known from the Egyptian and Gallic campaigns as a brilliant cavalry
officer, and Quintus Cassius, Pompeius' former quaestor,--the two,
who were now in Curio's stead managing the cause of Caesar in Rome--
insisted on the immediate reading of the despatch. The grave
and clear words in which Caesar set forth the imminence of civil war,
the general wish for peace, the arrogance of Pompeius, and his own
yielding disposition, with all the irresistible force of truth;
the proposals for a compromise, of a moderation which doubtless
surprised his own partisans; the distinct declaration that this was
the last time that he should offer his hand for peace--
made the deepest impression. In spite of the dread inspired
by the numerous soldiers of Pompeius who flocked into the capital,
the sentiment of the majority was not doubtful; the consuls could not
venture to let it find expression. Respecting the proposal renewed
by Caesar that both generals might be enjoined to resign their commands
simultaneously, respecting all the projects of accommodation
suggested by his letter, and respecting the proposal made
by Marcus Coelius Rufus and Marcus Calidius that Pompeius
shou