Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/409

CATO THE YOUNGER. 401 have been concerned in the contamination of these mis- deeds of Pompey, if they had been allied to his family ; and they acknowledged that he did best in refusing it. Yet if we may judge by the event, Cato was much to blame in rejecting that alliance, which thereby fell to Caesar. And then that match was made, which, uniting his and Pompey's power, had wellnigh ruined the Roman empire, and did destroy the commonwealth. Nothing of which perhaps had come to pass, but that Cato was too apprehensive of Pompey's least faults, and did not con- sider how he forced him into conferring on another man the opportunity of committing the greatest. These things, however, were yet to come. Lucullus, meantime, and Pompey, had a great dispute concerning their orders and arrangements in Pontus, each endeavor- ing that his own ordinances might stand. Cato took part with Lucullus, who was manifestly suffering wrong ; and Pompey, finding himself the weaker in the senate, had re- course to the people, and to gain votes, he proposed a law for dividing the lands among the soldiers. Cato opposing him in this also, made the bill be rejected. Upon this he joined himself with Clodius, at that time the most violent of all the demagogues ; and entered also into friendship with Caesar, upon an occasion of which also Cato was the cause. For Caesar returning from his government in Spain, at the same time sued to be chosen consul, and yet desired not to lose his triumph. Now the law requiring that those who stood for any office should be present, and yet that whoever expected a triumph should continue without the walls, Caesar requested the senate, that his friends might be permitted to canvass for him in his absence. Many of the senators were willing to consent to it, but Cato opposed it, and perceiving them inclined to favor Caesar, spent the whole day in speaking, and so prevented the senate from coming to any conclusion vol. iv. 26