The patricians had forgotten nothing and had learnt nothing. The Senate
had voted thanksgivings for Caesar's victories; but in their hearts they
hated him more for them, because they feared him more. Milo and his
gladiators gave them courage. The bitterest of the aristocrats, Domitius
Ahenobarbus, Cato's brother-in-law and praetor for the year, was a
candidate for the consulship. His enormous wealth made his success almost
certain, and he announced in the Senate that he meant to recall Caesar and
repeal his laws. In April a motion was introduced in the Senate to revise
Caesar's land act. Suspicions had gone abroad that Cicero believed
Caesar's star to be in the ascendant, and that he was again wavering. To
clear himself he spoke as passionately as Domitius could himself have
wished, and declared that he honored more the resistance of Bibulus than
all the triumphs in the world. It was time to come to an end with these
gentlemen. Pompey was deeply committed to Caesar's agrarian law, for it
had been passed primarily to provide for his own disbanded soldiers. He
was the only man in Rome who retained any real authority; and touched, as
for a moment he might have been, with jealousy, he felt that honor, duty,
every principle of prudence or patriotism, required him at so perilous a
crisis to give Caesar his firm support.
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