705. But in the meantime the incorrigible procrastinator consented to the postponement of the nomination of successors to the last day of Feb. 704, which was asked by the representatives of Caesar, probably on the ground of a clause of the Pompeio-Licinian law forbidding any discussion in the senate as to the nomination of successors before the beginning of Caesar's last year of office.
In this sense accordingly the decrees of the senate were issued (29 Sept. 703). The filling up of the Gallic governorships was placed in the order of the day for the 1st March 704; but even now it was attempted to break up the army of Caesar--just as had formerly been done by decree of the people with the army of Lucullus(18)-- by inducing his veterans to apply to the senate for their discharge. Caesar's supporters effected, indeed, as far as they constitutionally could, the cancelling of these decrees by their tribunician veto; but Pompeius very distinctly declared that the magistrates were bound unconditionally to obey the senate, and that intercessions and similar antiquated formalities would produce no change. The oligarchical party, whose organ Pompeius now made himself, betrayed not obscurely the design, in the event of a victory, of revising the constitution in their sense and removing everything which had even the semblance of popular freedom; as indeed, doubtless for this reason, it omitted to avail itself of the comitia at all in its attacks directed against Caesar. The coalition between Pompeius and the constitutional party was thus formally declared; sentence too was already evidently passed on Caesar, and the term of its promulgation was simply postponed. The elections for the following year proved thoroughly adverse to him.
Counter-Arrangements Of Caesar
During these party manoeuvres of his antagonists preparatory to war, Caesar had succeeded in getting rid of the Gallic insurrection and restoring the state of peace in the whole subject territory. As early as the summer of 703, under the convenient pretext of defending the frontier(19) but evidently in token of the fact that the legions in Gaul were now beginning to be no longer needed there, he moved one of them to North Italy. He could not avoid perceiving now at any rate, if not earlier, that he would not be spared the necessity of drawing the sword against his fellow- citizens; nevertheless, as it was highly desirable to leave the legions still for a time in the barely pacified Gaul, he sought even yet to procrastinate, and, well acquainted with the extreme love of peace in the majority of the senate, did not abandon the hope of still restraining them from the declaration of war in spite of the pressure exercised over them by Pompeius. He did not even hesitate to make great sacrifices, if only he might avoid for the present open variance with the supreme governing board. When the senate (in the spring of 704) at the suggestion of Pompeius requested both him and Caesar to furnish each a legion for the impending Parthian war(20) and when agreeably to this resolution Pompeius demanded back from Caesar the legion lent to him some years before, so as to send it to Syria, Caesar complied with the double demand, because neither the opportuneness of this decree of the senate nor the justice of the demand of Pompeius could in themselves be disputed, and the keeping within the bounds of the law and of formal loyalty was of more consequence to Caesar than a few thousand soldiers. The two legions came without delay and placed themselves at the disposal of the government, but instead of sending them to the Euphrates, the latter kept them at Capua in readiness for Pompeius; and the public had once more the opportunity of comparing the manifest endeavours of Caesar to avoid a rupture with the perfidious preparation for war by his opponents.
Curio
For the discussions with the senate Caesar had succeeded in purchasing not only one of the two consuls of the year, Lucius Aemilius Paullus, but above all the tribune of the people Gaius Curio, probably the most eminent among the many profligate men of parts in this epoch;(21) unsurpassed in refined elegance, in fluent and clever oratory, in dexterity of intrigue, and in that energy which in the case of vigorous but vicious characters bestirs itself only the more powerfully amid the pauses of idleness; but also unsurpassed in his dissolute life, in his talent for borrowing-- his debts were estimated at 60,000,000 sesterces (600,000 pounds)-- and in his moral and political want of principle. He had previously offered himself to be bought by Caesar and had been rejected; the talent, which he thenceforward displayed in his attacks on Caesar, induced the latter subsequently to buy him up--the price was high, but the commodity was worth the money.
Debates As To The Recall Of Caesar And Pompeius
Curio had in the first months of his tribunate of the people played the independent republican, and had as such thundered both against Caesar and against Pompeius. He availed himself with rare skill of the apparently impartial position which this gave him, when in March 704 the proposal as to the filling up of the Gallic governorships for the next year came up afresh for discussion in the senate; he completely approved the decree, but asked that it should be at the same time extended to Pompeius and his extraordinary commands. His arguments--that a constitutional state of things could only be brought about by the removal of all exceptional positions, that Pompeius as merely entrusted by the senate with the proconsulship could still less than Caesar refuse obedience to it, that the one-sided removal of one of the two generals would only increase the danger to the constitution-- carried complete conviction to superficial politicians and to the public at large; and the declaration of Curio, that he intended to prevent any onesided proceedings against Caesar by the veto constitutionally belonging to him, met with much approval in and out of the senate. Caesar declared his consent at once to Curio's proposal and offered to resign his governorship and command at any moment on the summons of the senate, provided Pompeius would do the same; he might safely do so, for Pompeius without his Italo-Spanish command was no longer formidable.