they should be led away
by lictors from the Forum, and took care that otherwise no harm
should befall them--it was for his interest that the political
comedy should remain such as it was.

The Agrarian Law Carried
Passive Resistance of the Aristocracy

Notwithstanding all the chicanery and all the blustering
of the nobility, the agrarian law, the confirmation of the Asiatic
arrangements, and the remission to the lessees of taxes
were adopted by the burgesses; and the commission of twenty was elected
with Pompeius and Crassus at its head, and installed in office.
With all their exertions the aristocracy had gained nothing,
save that their blind and spiteful antagonism had drawn the bonds
of the coalition still tighter, and their energy, which they were soon
to need for matters more important, had exhausted itself
on these affairs that were at bottom indifferent. They congratulated
each other on the heroic courage which they had displayed;
the declaration of Bibulus that he would rather die than yield,
the peroration which Cato still continued to deliver when in the hands
of the lictors, were great patriotic feats; otherwise they resigned
themselves to their fate. The consul Bibulus shut himself up
for the remainder of the year in his house, while he at the same time
intimated by public placard that he had the pious intention
of watching the signs of the sky on all the days appropriate
for public assemblies during that year. His colleagues once more
admired the great man who, as Ennius had said of the old Fabius,
"saved the state by wise delay," and they followed his example;
most of them, Cato included, no longer appeared in the senate,
but within their four walls helped their consul to fret over
the fact that the history of the world went on in spite of political
astronomy. To the public this passive attitude of the consul
as well as of the aristocracy in general appeared, as it fairly might,
a political abdication; and the coalition were naturally very well
content that they were left to take their farther steps almost
undisturbed.

Caesar Governor of the Two Gauls

The most important of these steps was the regulating of the future
position of Caesar. Constitutionally it devolved on the senate
to fix the functions of the second consular year of office before
the election of the consuls took place; accordingly it had, in prospect
of the election of Caesar, selected with that view for 696 two
provinces in wh