tion
of his finances there was a good prospect--nevertheless proved
a failure. The tribune of the people Lucius Metellus, moreover,
lodged a protest against all the steps of the proconsul, and made signs
as though he would protect with his person the public chest,
when Caesar's men came to empty it. Caesar could not avoid
in this case ordering that the inviolable person should be pushed aside
as gently as possible; otherwise, he kept by his purpose of abstaining
from all violent steps. He declared to the senate, just as
the constitutional party had done shortly before, that he had
certainly desired to regulate things in a legal way and with the help
of the supreme authority; but, since this help was refused,
he could dispense with it.

Provisional Arrangement of the Affairs of the Capital
The Provinces

Without further concerning himself about the senate and the formalities
of state law, he handed over the temporary administration
of the capital to the praetor Marcus Aemilius Lepidus as city-prefect,
and made the requisite arrangements for the administration
of the provinces that obeyed him and the continuance of the war.
Even amidst the din of the gigantic struggle, and with all
the alluring sound of Caesar's lavish promises, it still made
a deep impression on the multitude of the capital, when they saw
in their free Rome the monarch for the first time wielding
a monarch's power and breaking open the doors of the treasury
by his soldiers. But the times had gone by, when the impressions
and feelings of the multitude determined the course of events;
it was with the legions that the decision lay, and a few
painful feelings more or less were of no farther moment.

Pompeians in Spain

Caesar hastened to resume the war. He owed his successes
hitherto to the offensive, and he intended still to maintain it.
The position of his antagonist was singular. After the original plan
of carrying on the campaign simultaneously in the two Gauls
by offensive operations from the bases of Italy and Spain had been
frustrated by Caesar's aggressive, Pompeius had intended to go to Spain.
There he had a very strong position. The army amounted
to seven legions; a large number of Pompeius' veterans served in it,
and several years of conflicts in the Lusitanian mountains
had hardened soldiers and officers. Among its captains Marcus Varro
indeed was simply a celebrated scholar and a faithful partisan;
but Lucius Afranius had fought