ius. He was not, however, destined to compass the downfall of the
Sullan _regime_; the crisis of the Slave War placed the Senate at the mercy
of Pompey and Crassus, who in 70 B.C. swept away the safeguards of
senatorial ascendancy, restored the initiative in legislation to the
tribunes, and replaced the Equestrian order, _i.e._ the capitalists, in
partial possession of the jury-courts. This judicial reform (or rather
compromise) was the work of Caesar's uncle, L. Aurelius Cotta. Caesar
himself, however, gained no accession of influence. In 69 B.C. he served as
quaestor under Antistius Vetus, governor of Hither Spain, and on his way
back to Rome (according to Suetonius) promoted a revolutionary agitation
[v.04 p.0939] amongst the Transpadanes for the acquisition of full
political rights, which had been denied them by Sulla's settlement.

Caesar was now best known as a man of pleasure, celebrated for his debts
and his intrigues; in politics he had no force behind [Sidenote: Opposition
to the Optimates.] him save that of the discredited party of the
_populares_, reduced to lending a passive support to Pompey and Crassus.
But as soon as the proved incompetence of the senatorial government had
brought about the mission of Pompey to the East with the almost unlimited
powers conferred on him by the Gabinian and Manilian laws of 67 and 66 B.C.
(see POMPEY), Caesar plunged into a network of political intrigues which it
is no longer possible to unravel. In his public acts he lost no opportunity
of upholding the democratic tradition. Already in 68 B.C. he had paraded
the bust of Marius at his aunt's funeral; in 65 B.C., as curule aedile, he
restored the trophies of Marius to their place on the Capitol; in 64 B.C.,
as president of the murder commission, he brought three of Sulla's
executioners to trial, and in 63 B.C. he caused the ancient procedure of
trial by popular assembly to be revived against the murderer of Saturninus.
By these means, and by the lavishness of his expenditure on public
entertainments as aedile, he acquired such popularity with the plebs that
he was elected _pontifex maximus_ in 63 B.C. against such distinguished
rivals as Q. Lutatius Catulus and P. Servilius Isauricus. But all this was
on the surface. There can be no doubt that Caesar was cognizant of some at
least of the threads of conspiracy which were woven during Pompey's absence
in the East. According to one story, the _enfants perdus_ of the
revolutionar