Caesar

For not only did the candidates for office there enjoy his assistance, and win their elections by corrupting the people with money from him, and do everything which was likely to enhance his power, but also most of the men of highest rank and greatest influence came to see him at Luca,[*](In April of 56 B.C.) including Pompey, Crassus, Appius the governor of Sardinia, and Nepos the proconsul of Spain, so that there were a hundred and twenty lictors in the place and more than two hundred senators.

They held a council and settled matters on the following basis. Pompey and Crassus were to be elected consuls for the ensuing year, and Caesar was to have money voted him, besides another five years in his provincial command. This seemed very strange to men of understanding. For those who were getting so much money from Caesar urged the senate to give him money as if he had none, nay rather, they forced it to do so, though it groaned over its own decrees.

Cato, indeed, was not there, for he had purposely been sent out of the way on a mission to Cyprus,[*](Cf. the Cato Minor, xxxiv.) and Favonius, who was an ardent follower of Cato, finding himself unable to accomplish anything by his opposition, bounded out of doors and clamoured to the populace. But no one gave heed to him, for some were in awe of Pompey and Crassus, and most wanted to please Caesar, lived in hopes of his favours, and so kept quiet.

On returning to his forces in Gaul,[*](In 55 B.C. Plutarch passes over Caesar’s campaign of 56 B.C. in Gaul, following the conference at Luca. Caesar describes it in B. G. iii.) Caesar found a considerable war in the country, since two great German nations had just crossed the Rhine to possess the land, one called the Usipes,[*](Caesar calls them Usipetes and Tencteri (B. G iv. 1).) the other the Tenteritae.