re, remained still good enough for watchwords
in the struggle of the two generals contending for the sole rule;
and, though for the moment both Pompeius and Caesar ranked themselves
officially with the so-called popular party, it could not be
for a moment doubtful that Caesar would inscribe on his banner
the people and democratic progress, Pompeius the aristocracy
and the legitimate constitution.

The Democracy and Caesar

Caesar had no choice. He was from the outset and very earnestly
a democrat; the monarchy as he understood it differed more outwardly
than in reality from the Gracchan government of the people;
and he was too magnanimous and too profound a statesman to conceal
his colours and to fight under any other escutcheon than his own.
The immediate advantage no doubt, which this battle-cry brought to him,
was trifling; it was confined mainly to the circumstance
that he was thereby relieved from the inconvenience of directly naming
the kingly office, and so alarming the mass of the lukewarm
and his own adherents by that detested word. The democratic banner
hardly yielded farther positive gain, since the ideals of Gracchus
had been rendered infamous and ridiculous by Clodius;
for where was there now--laying aside perhaps the Transpadanes--
any class of any sort of importance, which would have been induced
by the battle-cries of the democracy to take part in the struggle?

The Aristocracy and Pompeius

This state of things would have decided the part of Pompeius
in the impending struggle, even if apart from this it had not been
self-evident that he could only enter into it as the general
of the legitimate republic. Nature had destined him, if ever any one,
to be a member of an aristocracy; and nothing but very accidental
and very selfish motives had carried him over as a deserter
from the aristocratic to the democratic camp. That he should now
revert to his Sullan traditions, was not merely befitting in the case,
but in every respect of essential advantage. Effete as was
the democratic cry, the conservative cry could not but have
the more potent effect, if it proceeded from the right man.
Perhaps the majority, at any rate the flower of the burgesses,
belonged to the constitutional party; and as respected its numerical
and moral strength might well be called to interfere powerfully,
perhaps decisively, in the impending struggle of the pretenders.
It wanted nothing but a leader. Marcus Cato, its present h