[-44-] Thus this trouble came to an end in the consulship of Lucius Paulus and Gaius Marcellus.  Caesar in the interest of the Gauls and to see about the term allowed him for leadership had to leave Gaul and return to Rome.  His office was about to terminate, the war had ceased, and he had no longer any satisfactory excuse for not disbanding his troops and returning to private life.  Affairs in the city at this time were in turmoil, Crassus was dead, and Pompey had again come to power, after being three times consul and having managed to get the government of Spain granted to him for five years more.  The latter had no longer any bond of alliance with Caesar, especially now that the child, who alone had kept them on friendly terms, had passed away.  The returning general therefore was afraid that stripped of his soldiers he might fall into the power of Pompey and of his other enemies, and therefore did not dismiss them.

[B.C. 53 (a.u. 701)]

[-45-] In these same years many tumults of a seditious character had arisen in the city, and especially in connection with the elections, so that it was fully six months before Calvinus and Messala could be appointed consuls.  And not even then would they have been chosen, had not Quintus Pompeius Rufus, though the grandson of Sulla and serving as tribune, been cast into prison by the senate, whereupon the measure was voted by the rest who were anxious to commit some outrages, and the campaign against opposition was handed over to Pompey.  Sometimes the birds had prevented elections, refusing to allow the offices to belong to interreges; above all the tribunes, by managing affairs in the city so that they instead of the praetors conducted games, hindered the remaining offices from being filled.  This also accounts for Rufus having been confined in a cell.  He later on brought Favonius the aedile to the same place on some small charge, in order that he might have a companion in his disgrace.  But all the tribunes introduced various obstructive pleas, proposing, among other things, to appoint military tribunes, so that more persons, as formerly, might come to office.  When no one would heed them, they declared that Pompey, at all events, must be chosen dictator.  By this pretext they secured a very long delay:  for he was out of town, and of those on the spot there was no one who would venture to vote for the demand (for in remembrance of Sulla’s cruelty they all hated that policy), nor yet venture to refuse to choose Pompey, on account of their fear of him.[-46-] At last, quite late, he came himself, refused the dictatorship offered to him, and made preparation to have the consuls named.  These likewise on account of the turmoil from assassinations did not appoint any successors, though they had laid aside their senatorial garb and in the dress of knights convened the senate as if on the occasion of some great calamity.  They also passed a decree that no one,—­either an ex-praetor or an ex-consul,—­should assume