nothing after deliberation, seems to have
followed a definite policy and definite plans in avoiding the traps of
those who had made ready to oppose his election to the tribunate--I mean
the Laelii, Antonii, and powerful people of that sort." Without strong
convictions or a settled policy, unscrupulous, impetuous, radical, and
changeable, these are the qualities which Caelius finds in Curio, and what
we have seen of his career leads us to accept the correctness of this
estimate. In 61 he had been the champion of Clodius, and the leader of the
young Democrats, while two years later we found him the opponent of Caesar,
and an ultra-Conservative. It is in the light of his knowledge of Curio's
character, and after receiving this letter from Caelius, that Cicero writes
in December, 51 B.C., to congratulate him upon his election to the
tribunate. He begs him "to govern and direct his course in all matters in
accordance with his own judgment, and not to be carried away by the advice
of other people." "I do not fear," he says, "that you may do anything in a
fainthearted or stupid way, if you defend those policies which you
yourself shall believe to be right.... Commune with yourself, take
yourself into counsel, hearken to yourself, determine your own policy."

The other point in the letter of Caelius, his analysis of the political
situation, so far as Curio is concerned, is not so easy to follow. Caelius
evidently believes that Curio had coquetted with Caesar and had been
snubbed by him, that his intrigues with Caesar had at first led the
aristocracy to oppose his candidacy, but that Caesar's contemptuous
treatment of his advances had driven him into the arms of the senatorial
party. It is quite possible, however, that an understanding may have been
reached between Caesar and Curio even at this early date, and that Caesar's
coldness and Curio's conservatism may both have been assumed. This would
enable Curio to pose as an independent leader, free from all obligations
to Caesar, Pompey, or the Conservatives, and anxious to see fair play and
safeguard the interests of the whole people, an independent leader who
was driven over in the end to Caesar's side by the selfish and factious
opposition of the senatorial party to his measures of reform and his
advocacy of even-handed justice for both Caesar and Pompey.[130]

Whether Curio came to an understanding with Caesar before he entered on his
tribunate or not, his policy from the outse