the situation. Cæsar was still fighting hard in Gaul, Pompey ruling, as best he could, at home. Throughout a long letter of explanation to 54 B.C.Lentulus, written in this year, Cicero refers to the supremacy of Pompey in the State as the central fact in the situation, and he seems entirely to have forgotten that this supremacy might come to be challenged by Cæsar.
To maintain for any length of time good order in Rome was beyond Pompey's power. The elections were not only scandalously corrupt,[1] but so turbulent that year after year had to begin with an "interregnum," because no consuls could be chosen at the proper time. A painful accident occurring at one of these scenes of tumult had serious consequences in the future. Some one standing near to Pompey was struck by a stone or a bludgeon, and Pompey's gown was bespattered with blood. The gown was carried home, and unhappily met the eye of his young wife. The shock of the sight occasioned a miscarriage, from the effect of which Julia never recovered, and her death some months later severed one of the main bonds which united Cæsar and Pompey.
The glimpses which we get of the law-courts at this time do not give a high idea of the administration of justice. "Now for the news of Rome. 54 B.C.On the 5th of July Sufenas and Caius Cato were acquitted, and Procilius convicted; from- ↑ In the year 54 B.C. the rate of interest rose from four to eight per cent., owing to the demand for ready money to be spent in bribery; £100,000 was promised for the vote of the first century; Scaurus, who came rather late into the field, is reported "to have satisfied the electors tribe by tribe at his house," and so forth.
