XXXI.  These things, however, were still in the future.  Now when Lucullus was engaged in a contest with Pompeius respecting the arrangements made in Pontus, for each of them wished his own arrangements to be confirmed, and Cato gave his aid to Lucullus, who was manifestly wronged, Pompeius being worsted in the Senate and seeking to make himself popular, proposed a division of lands among the soldiery.  But when Cato opposed him in this measure also and frustrated the law, Pompeius next attached himself to Clodius, the boldest of the demagogues at that time, and gained over Caesar,[702] to which Cato in a manner gave occasion.  For Caesar, who had returned from his praetorship in Iberia, at the same time wished to be a candidate for the consulship and asked for a triumph.  But as it was the law that those who were candidates for a magistracy should be present, and those who were going to have a triumph should stay outside the walls, Caesar asked permission of the Senate to solicit the office through means of others.  Many were willing to consent, but Cato spoke against it, and when he saw that the Senators were ready to oblige Caesar, he took up the whole day in talking, and thus frustrated the designs, of the Senate.  Caesar accordingly giving up his hopes of a triumph, entered the city, and immediately attached himself to Pompeius, and sought the consulship.  Being elected consul, Caesar gave Julia in marriage to Pompeius, and the two now coalescing against the state, the one introduced laws for giving to the poor allotments and a distribution of land, and the other assisted in supporting these measures.  But Lucullus and Cicero siding with Bibulus, the other consul, opposed the measures, and Cato most of all, who already suspected that the friendship and combination of Caesar and Pompeius had no just object, and said that he was not afraid of the distribution of the land, but of the reward for it which those would claim who were gratifying the multitude, and alluring them by this bait.

XXXII.  By these arguments Cato brought the Senate to an unanimous opinion; and of those without the Senate no small number supported the senators, being annoyed at the unusual measures of Caesar:  for what the boldest and most reckless tribunes were used to propose for popularity’s sake, these very measures Caesar in the possession of consular power adopted, basely and meanly endeavouring to ingratiate himself with the people.  Caesar’s party, therefore, being alarmed, had recourse to violence, and first of all a basket of ordure was thrown upon Bibulus as he was going down to the Forum, and then the people fell on his lictors and broke the fasces; finally missiles being thrown about, and many being wounded, all the rest ran away from the Forum except Cato, who walked away slowly, every now and then turning round and cursing the citizens.  Accordingly Caesar’s partisans not only passed the law for the distribution of land,[703] but they added to it a clause to compel