Thus Pompeius gained by the alliance with the conservatives both a second army in addition to his personal adherents, and a suitable war-manifesto-- advantages which certainly were purchased at the high price of coalescing with those who were in principle opposed to him. Of the countless evils involved in this coalition, there was developed in the meantime only one--but that already a very grave one-- that Pompeius surrendered the power of commencing hostilities against Caesar when and how he pleased, and in this decisive point made himself dependent on all the accidents and caprices of an aristocratic corporation.
The Republicans
Thus the republican opposition, after having been for years obliged to rest content with the part of a mere spectator and having hardly ventured to whisper, was now brought back once more to the political stage by the impending rupture between the regents. It consisted primarily of the circle which rallied round Cato-- those republicans who were resolved to venture on the struggle for the republic and against the monarchy under all circumstances, and the sooner the better. The pitiful issue of the attempt made in 698(15) had taught them that they by themselves alone were not in a position either to conduct war or even to call it forth; it was known to every one that even in the senate, while the whole corporation with a few isolated exceptions was averse to monarchy, the majority would still only restore the oligarchic government if it might be restored without danger--in which case, doubtless, it had a good while to wait. In presence of the regents on the one hand, and on the other hand of this indolent majority, which desired peace above all things and at any price, and was averse to any decided action and most of all to a decided rupture with one or other of the regents, the only possible course for the Catonian party to obtain a restoration of the old rule lay in a coalition with the less dangerous of the rulers. If Pompeius acknowledged the oligarchic constitution and offered to fight for it against Caesar, the republican opposition might and must recognize him as its general, and in alliance with him compel the timid majority to a declaration of war. That Pompeius was not quite in earnest with his fidelity to the constitution, could indeed escape nobody; but, undecided as he was in everything, he had by no means arrived like Caesar at a clear and firm conviction that it must be the first business of the new monarch to sweep off thoroughly and conclusively the oligarchic lumber. At any rate the war would train a really republican army and really republican generals; and, after the victory over Caesar, they might proceed with more favourable prospects to set aside not merely oneof the monarchs, but the monarchy itself, which was in the course of formation. Desperate as was the cause of the oligarchy, the offer of Pompeius to become its ally was the most favourable arrangement possible for it.
Their League With Pompeius
The conclusion of the alliance between Pompeius and the Catonian party was effected with comparative rapidity. Already during the dictatorship of Pompeius a remarkable approximation had taken place between them. The whole behaviour of Pompeius in the Milonian crisis, his abrupt repulse of the mob that offered him the dictatorship, his distinct declaration that he would accept this office only from the senate, his unrelenting severity against disturbers of the peace of every sort and especially against the ultra-democrats, the surprising complaisance with which he treated Cato and those who shared his views, appeared as much calculated to gain the men of order as they were offensive to the democrat Caesar. On the other hand Cato and his followers, instead of combating with their wonted sternness the proposal to confer the dictatorship on Pompeius, had made it with immaterial alterations of form their own; Pompeius had received the undivided consulship primarily from the hands of Bibulus and Cato. While the Catonian party and Pompeius had thus at least a tacit understanding as early as the beginning of 702, the alliance might be held as formally concluded, when at the consular elections for 703 there was elected not Cato himself indeed, but--along with an insignificant man belonging to the majority of the senate--one of the most decided adherents of Cato, Marcus Claudius Marcellus. Marcellus was no furious zealot and still less a genius, but a steadfast and strict aristocrat, just the right man to declare war if war was to be begun with Caesar. As the case stood, this election, so surprising after the repressive measures adopted immediately before against the republican opposition, can hardly have occurred otherwise than with the consent, or at least under the tacit permission, of the regent of Rome for the time being. Slowly and clumsily, as was his wont, but steadily Pompeius moved onward to the rupture.
Passive Resistance Of Caesar
It was not the intention of Caesar on the other hand to fall out at this moment with Pompeius. He could not indeed desire seriously and permanently to share the ruling power with any colleague, least of all with one of so secondary a sort as was Pompeius; and beyond doubt he had long resolved after terminating the conquest of Gaul to take the sole power for himself, and in case of need to extort it by force of arms. But a man like Caesar, in whom the officer was thoroughly subordinate to the statesman, could not fail to perceive that the regulation of the political organism by force of arms does in its consequences deeply and often permanently disorganize it; and therefore he could not but seek to solve the difficulty, if at all possible, by peaceful means or at least without open civil war. But even if civil war was not to be avoided, he could not desire to be driven to it at a time, when in Gaul the rising of Vercingetorix imperilled afresh all that had been obtained and occupied him without interruption from the winter of 701-702 to the winter of 702-703, and when Pompeius and the constitutional party opposed to him on principle were dominant in Italy.