XIV.  Caesar,[473] however, supported on both sides by the friendship of Crassus and Pompeius, was raised to the consulship and proclaimed triumphantly with Calpurnius Bibulus for his colleague.  Immediately upon entering on his office he proposed enactments more suitable to the most turbulent tribune than a consul, for in order to please the populace he introduced measures for certain allotments and divisions of land.[474] But he met with opposition in the Senate from the good and honourable among them, and as he had long been looking for a pretext, he exclaimed with solemn adjurations, that he was driven against his will to court the favour of the people by the arrogance and obstinacy of the Senate, and accordingly he hurried to the popular assembly and placing Crassus on one side of him and Pompeius on the other, he asked them if they approved of his legislative measures.  Upon their expressing their approbation, he entreated them to give him their aid against those who threatened to oppose him with their swords.  Pompeius and Crassus promised their assistance, and Pompeius added, that he would oppose swords with sword and shield.  The nobility were annoyed at hearing such mad, inconsiderate words drop from Pompeius, which were unbecoming his own character and the respect that he owed to the Senate; but the people were delighted.  Caesar, whose secret design it was to secure the influence of Pompeius still more, gave him to wife his daughter Julia,[475] who was already betrothed to Servilius Caepio; and he promised Caepio that he should have the daughter of Pompeius, though she also was not disengaged, being betrothed to Faustus, the son of Sulla.  Shortly after Caesar married Calpurnia, the daughter of Piso, and got Piso named consul for the next year, though Cato in this matter also strongly protested and exclaimed that it was an intolerable thing for the chief power to be prostituted by marriage bargains and that they should help one another by means of women, to provinces and armies and political power.  Bibulus, Caesar’s colleague, found it useless to oppose Caesar’s measures, and he and Cato several times narrowly escaped with their lives in the Forum, whereupon Bibulus shut himself up at home for the remainder of his consulship.  Immediately after his marriage Pompeius filled the Forum with armed men, and supported the people in passing Caesar’s laws and in giving him for five years Gaul on both sides of the Alps with the addition of Illyricum and four legions.  Upon Cato’s venturing to speak against these measures, Caesar ordered him to be carried off to prison, thinking that he would appeal to the tribunes.  But Cato went off without speaking a word; and Caesar observing that the nobles were much annoyed at this, and the people also through respect for Cato’s virtue were following him in silence and with downcast eyes, secretly asked one of the tribunes to release Cato.  Very few of the senators used to accompany Caesar to the Senate, but the majority not liking his measures stayed