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.  Accordingly he sought to preserve the relation with Pompeius and thereby the peace unbroken, and to attain, if at all possible, by peaceful means to the consulship for 706 already assured to him at Luca.  If he should then after a conclusive settlement of Celtic affairs be placed in a regular manner at the head of the state, he, who was still more decidedly superior to Pompeius as a statesman than as a general, might well reckon on outmanoeuvring the latter in the senate-house and in the Forum without special difficulty.  Perhaps it was possible to find out for his awkward, vacillating, and arrogant rival some sort of honourable and influential position, in which the latter might be content to sink into a nullity; the repeated attempts of Caesar to keep himself related by marriage to Pompeius, may have been designed to pave the way for such a solution and to bring about a final settlement of the old quarrel through the succession of offspring inheriting the blood of both competitors.  The republican opposition would then remain without a leader and therefore probably quiet, and peace would be preserved.  If this should not be successful, and if there should be, as was certainly possible, a necessity for ultimately resorting to the decision of arms, Caesar would then as consul in Rome dispose of the compliant majority of the senate; and he could impede or perhaps frustrate the coalition of the Pompeians and the republicans, and conduct the war far more suitably and more advantageously, than if he now as proconsul of Gaul gave orders to march against the senate and its general.  Certainly the success of this plan depended on Pompeius being good-natured enough to let Caesar still obtain the consulship for 706 assured to him at Luca; but, even if it failed, it would be always of advantage for Caesar to have given practical and repeated evidence of the most yielding disposition.  On the one hand time would thus be gained for attaining his object meanwhile in Gaul; on the other hand his opponents would be left with the odium of initiating the rupture and consequently the civil war—­ which was of the utmost moment for Caesar with reference to the majority of the senate and the party of material interests, and more especially with reference to his own soldiers.

On these views he acted.  He armed certainly; the number of his legion was raised through new levies in the winter of 702-703 to eleven, including that borrowed from Pompeius.  But at the same time he expressly and openly approved of Pompeius’ conduct during the dictatorship and the restoration of order in the capital which he had effected, rejected the warnings of officious friends as calumnies, reckoned every day by which he succeeded in postponing the catastrophe a gain, overlooked whatever could be overlooked and bore whatever could be borne—­ immoveably adhering only to the one decisive demand that, when his governorship of Gaul came to an end with 705, the second consulship, admissible by republican state-law and promised to him according to agreement by his colleague, should be granted to him for the year 706.