XLI.  After this Pompeius and Crassus[721] had a meeting with Caesar, who had come across the Alps, in which they agreed that they should seek a second consulship; and when they were established in it, they should cause another period in Caesar’s government as long as the first to be given him by the vote of the people, and to themselves the chief of the provinces and money and military forces:  the which was a conspiracy for the division of the supreme power and the destruction of the constitution.  Now though many honest men were at this time preparing to be candidates for the consulship, they were deterred by seeing Pompeius and Crassus canvassing; but Lucius Domitius alone, the husband of Porcia, the sister of Cato, was induced by Cato not to give way or to yield, as the contest was not for office but for the liberty of Rome.  And indeed it was currently said among that part of the citizens who were still of sober thoughts, that they ought not to allow the consular office to become completely overbearing and oppressive by permitting the power of Crassus and Pompeius to be combined, but that they should deprive one of them of the office.  And they ranged themselves on the side of Domitius, urging and encouraging him to keep to his purpose; for many, they argued, even of those who said nothing by reason of fear, would help him with their votes.  The party of Pompeius and Crassus fearing this, laid an ambuscade for Domitius as he was going down to the Campus Martius early in the morning, by torch-light.  First of all the man who was lighting Domitius and standing close by him was struck and fell down dead; and after him others also being wounded, there was a general flight of all except Cato and Domitius; for Cato held Domitius though he himself was wounded in the arm, and urged him to stay and so long as there was breath in them, not to give up the struggle for liberty against the tyrants who showed how they would use their power, by making their way to it through such acts of wrong.

XLII.  Domitius, however, did not face the danger, but fled to his house, upon which Pompeius and Crassus,[722] were elected.  Yet Cato did not give up the contest, but came forward as a candidate for a praetorship, because he wished to have a strong position in his struggles with them and not to be himself a private man while he was opposing those who were in office.  Pompeius and Crassus being afraid of this, and considering that the praetorship by reason of Cato would become a match for the consulship, in the first place on a sudden and without the knowledge of many of the body, summoned the Senate, and got a vote passed that those who were elected praetors should enter on office forthwith and should not let the time fixed by law intervene, during which time prosecutions were allowed of those who had bribed the people.  In the next place, now that they had by the vote of the Senate made bribery free from all responsibility, they brought forward their own tools and friends as candidates for the praetorship,