When he was asked what he
would do if a tribune interposed, he said it made no difference whether
Caesar himself disobeyed the Senate or provided some one else to interfere
with the Senate. Suppose, said one, Caesar wishes to be consul and to keep
his army. Pompey answered, 'What if my son wishes to lay a stick on my
back'.... It appears that Caesar will accept one or other of two
conditions: either to remain in his province, and postpone his claim for
the consulship; or, if he can be named for the consulship, then to retire.
Curio is all against him. What he can accomplish, I know not; but I
perceive this, that if Caesar means well, he will not be
overthrown." [6]
The object of the Senate was either to ruin Caesar, if he complied with
this order, or to put him in the wrong by provoking him to disobedience.
The scheme was ingenious; but if the Senate could mine, Caesar could
countermine. Caelius said that Curio was violent against him: and so Curio
had been. Curio was a young man of high birth, dissolute, extravagant, and
clever. His father, who had been consul five-and-twenty years before, was
a strong aristocrat and a close friend of Cicero's. The son had taken the
same line; but, among other loose companions, he had made the
acquaintance, to his father's regret, of Mark Antony, and though they had
hitherto been of opposite politics, the intimacy had continued.
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