proposal of Cato.  The league of the democratic leaders with anarchy had obviously created a breach between the former and the burgesses of the city; and the oligarchy sought, not without at least momentary success, to enlarge this chasm and to draw over the masses to their side.  Lastly, Gnaeus Pompeius had been partly warned, partly exasperated, by all these cabals; after all that had occurred, and after the democracy had itself virtually torn asunder the ties which connected it with Pompeius, it could no longer with propriety make the request—­ which in 684 had had a certain amount of reason on its side—­ that he should not himself destroy with the sword the democratic power which he had raised, and which had raised him.

Thus the democracy was disgraced and weakened; but above all it had become ridiculous through the merciless exposure of its perplexity and weakness.  Where the humiliation of the overthrown government and similar matters of little moment were concerned, it was great and potent; but every one of its attempts to attain a real political success had proved a downright failure.  Its relation to Pompeius was as false as pitiful.  While it was loading him with panegyrics and demonstrations of homage, it was concocting against him one intrigue after another; and one after another, like soap-bubbles, they burst of themselves.  The general of the east and of the seas, far from standing on his defence against them, appeared not even to observe all the busy agitation, and to obtain his victories over the democracy as Herakles gained his over the Pygmies, without being himself aware of it.  The attempt to kindle civil war had miserably failed; if the anarchist section had at least displayed some energy, the pure democracy, while knowing doubtless how to hire conspirators, had not known how to lead them or to save them or to die with them.  Even the old languid oligarchy, strengthened by the masses passing over to it from the ranks of the democracy and above all by the—­in this affair unmistakeable—­identity of its interests and those of Pompeius, had been enabled to suppress this attempt at revolution and thereby to achieve yet a last victory over the democracy.  Meanwhile king Mithradates was dead, Asia Minor and Syria were regulated, and the return of Pompeius to Italy might be every moment expected.  The decision was not far off; but was there in fact still room to speak of a decision between the general who returned more famous and mightier than ever, and the democracy humbled beyond parallel and utterly powerless?  Crassus prepared to embark his family and his gold and to seek an asylum somewhere in the east; and even so elastic and so energetic a nature as that of Caesar seemed on the point of giving up the game as lost.  In this year (691) occurred his candidature for the place of -pontifex maximus-;(22) when he left his dwelling on the morning of the election, he declared that, if he should fail in this also, he would never again cross the threshold of his house.