Under the impulse which the
popular party had received from Pompey's successes, Labienus carried a
vote in the assembly, by which the people resumed the nomination to the
pontificate themselves. In the same year it fell vacant by the death of
the aged Metullus Pius. Two patricians, Quintus Catulus and Caesar's old
general Servilius Isauricus, were the Senate's candidates, and vast sums
were subscribed and spent to secure the success of one or other of the
two. Caesar came forward to oppose them. Caesar aspired to be Pontifex
Maximus--Pope of Rome--he who of all men living was the least given to
illusion; he who was the most frank in his confession of entire disbelief
in the legends which, though few credited them any more, yet almost all
thought it decent to pretend to credit. Among the phenomena of the time
this was surely the most singular. Yet Caesar had been a priest from his
boyhood, and why should he not be Pope? He offered himself to the Comitia.
Committed as he was to a contest with the richest men in Rome, he spent
money freely. He was in debt already for his expenses as aedile. He
engaged his credit still deeper for this new competition. The story ran
that when his mother kissed him as he was leaving his home for the Forum
on the morning of the election, he told her that he would return as
pontiff, or she would never see him more.
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