Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/276

268 CLESAR. government. He took pains to establish a good under- standing amongst the several states, and no less care to heal the differences between debtors and creditors. He ordered that the creditor should receive two parts of the debtor's yearly income, and that the other part should be managed by the debtor himself, till by this method the whole debt was at last discharged. This conduct made him leave his province with a fair reputation ; being rich himself, and having enriched his soldiers, and having re- ceived from them the honorable name of Imperator. There is a law among the Komans, that whoever desires the honor of a triumph must stay without the city and expect his answer. And another, that those who stand for the consulship shall appear personally upon the place. Caesar was come home at the very time of choosing con- suls, and being in a difficulty between these two oppo- site laws, sent to the senate to desire that since he was obliged to be absent, he might sue for the consulship by his friends. Cato, being backed by the law, at first op- posed his request ; afterwards perceiving that Caesar had prevailed with a great part of the senate to comply with it, he made it his- business to gain time, and went on wasting the whole day in speaking. Upon which Caesar thought fit to let the triumph fall, and pursued the con- sulship. Entering the town and coming forward imme- diately, he had recourse to a piece of state-policy by which everybody was deceived but Cato. This was the reconciling of Crassus and Pompey, the two men who then were most powerful in Rome. There had been a quarrel between them, which he now succeeded in making up, and by this means strengthened himself by the united power of both, and so under the cover of an action which carried all the appearance of a piece of kindness and good-nature, caused what was in effect a revolution in the government. For it was not the quar-