The affection for
Caesar was passing off.
[Sidenote: B.C. 52.]
A more objectionable candidate than Milo could hardly have been found. He
was no better than a patrician gladiator, and the choice of such a man was
a sufficient indication of the Senate's intentions. The popular party led
by the tribunes made a sturdy resistance. There were storms in the Curia,
tribunes imprisoning senators, and the Senate tribunes. Army officers
suggested the election of military tribunes (lieutenant-generals), instead
of consuls; and when they failed, they invited Pompey to declare himself
Dictator. The Senate put on mourning, as a sign of approaching calamity.
Pompey calmed their fears by declining so ambitious a position. But as it
was obvious that Milo's chief object was a province which he might
misgovern, Pompey forced the Senate to pass a resolution that consuls and
praetors must wait five years from their term of office before a province
was to be allotted to them. The temptation to corruption might thus in
some degree be diminished. But senatorial resolutions did not pass for
much, and what a vote had enacted a vote could repeal. The agitation
continued. The tribunes, when the time came, forbade the elections. The
year expired. The old magistrates went out of office, and Rome was left
again without legitimate functionaries to carry on the government.
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