THE HISTORY OF OLD ROME

V. The Establishment of the Military Monarchy

From: The History of Rome, by Theodor Mommsen
Translated with the sanction of the author by William Purdie Dickson

Chapter VIII - The Joint Rule of Pompeius and Caesar

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Page 30

They had taken up arms only to lay them down, so soon as the adversary merely put his hand to the sheath; the bare news of the conferences in Luca sufficed to suppress all thought of a serious opposition and to bring the mass of the timid--that is, the immense majority of the senate-- back to their duty as subjects, which in an unhappy hour they had abandoned. There was no further talk of the appointed discussion to try the validity of the Julian laws; the legions raised by Caesar on his own behalf were charged by decree of the senate on the public chest; the attempts on occasion of regulating the next consular provinces to take away both Gauls or one of them by decree from Caesar were rejected by the majority (end of May 698).

Thus the corporation did public penance. In secret the individual lords, one after another, thoroughly frightened at their own temerity, came to make their peace and vow unconditional obedience-- none more quickly than Marcus Cicero, who repented too late of his perfidy, and in respect of the most recent period of his life clothed himself with titles of honour which were altogether more appropriate than flattering.(5)

5. -Me asinum germanum fuisse- (Ad Att. iv. 5, 3).

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