between the two men ruling the state had become altered and relaxed, now that Caesar had acquired a standing of preponderant power by the side of Pompeius and had compelled the latter to canvass for a new position of command; it was probable that, if he obtained it, there would arise in one way or other a rupture and struggle between them.  If Pompeius remained unsupported in this, his defeat was scarcely doubtful, and the constitutional party would in that event find themselves after the close of the conflict under the rule of one master instead of two.  But if the nobility employed against Caesar the same means by which the latter had won his previous victories, and entered into alliance with the weaker competitor, victory would probably, with a general like Pompeius, and with an army such as that of the constitutionalists, fall to the coalition; and to settle matters with Pompeius after the victory could not—­ judging from the proofs of political incapacity which he had already given-appear a specially difficult task.

Attempts of Pompeius to Obtain a Command through the Senate Administration of the Supplies of Corn

Things had taken such a turn as naturally to suggest an understanding between Pompeius and the republican party.  Whether such an approximation was to take place, and what shape the mutual relations of the two regents and of the aristocracy, which had become utterly enigmatical, were next to assume, fell necessarily to be decided, when in the autumn of 697 Pompeius came to the senate with the proposal to entrust him with extraordinary official power.  He based his proposal once more on that by which he had eleven years before laid the foundations of his power, the price of bread in the capital, which had just then—­as previously to the Gabinian law—­reached an oppressive height.  Whether it had been forced up by special machinations, such as Clodius imputed sometimes to Pompeius, sometimes to Cicero, and these in their turn charged on Clodius, cannot be determined; the continuance of piracy, the emptiness of the public chest, and the negligent and disorderly supervision of the supplies of corn by the government were already quite sufficient of themselves, even without political forestalling, to produce scarcities of bread in a great city dependent almost solely on transmarine supplies.  The plan of Pompeius was to get the senate to commit to him the superintendence of the matters relating to corn throughout the whole Roman empire, and, with a view to this ultimate object, to entrust him on the one hand with the unlimited disposal of the Roman state-treasure, and on the other hand with an army and fleet, as well as a command which not only stretched over the whole Roman empire, but was superior in each province to that of the governor—­in short he designed to institute an improved edition of the Gabinian law, to which the conduct of the Egyptian war just then pending(3) would therefore quite as naturally have