For the discussions with the senate Caesar had succeeded in purchasing not only one of the two consuls of the year, Lucius Aemilius Paullus, but above all the tribune of the people Gaius Curio, probably the most eminent among the many profligate men of parts in this epoch[21]; unsurpassed in refined elegance, in fluent and clever oratory, in dexterity of intrigue, and in that energy which in the case of vigorous but vicious characters bestirs itself only the more powerfully amid the pauses of idleness; but also unsurpassed in his dissolute life, in his talent for borrowing - his debts were estimated at 60,000,000 sesterces (600,000 pounds) - and in his moral and political want of principle. He had previously offered himself to be bought by Caesar and had been rejected; the talent, which he thenceforward displayed in his attacks on Caesar, induced the latter subsequently to buy him up - the price was high, but the commodity was worth the money.
Curio had in the first months of his tribunate of the people played the independent republican, and had as such thundered both against Caesar and against Pompeius. He availed himself with rare skill of the apparently impartial position which this gave him, when in March 704 the proposal as to the filling up of the Gallic governorships for the next year came up afresh for discussion in the senate; he completely approved the decree, but asked that it should be at the same time extended to Pompeius and his extraordinary commands. His arguments - that a constitutional state of things could only be brought about by the removal of all exceptional positions, that Pompeius as merely entrusted by the senate with the proconsulship could still less than Caesar refuse obedience to it, that the one-sided removal of one of the two generals would only increase the danger to the constitution - carried complete conviction to superficial politicians and to the public at large; and the declaration of Curio, that he intended to prevent any onesided proceedings against Caesar by the veto constitutionally belonging to him, met with much approval in and out of the senate.
Caesar declared his consent at once to Curio's proposal and offered to resign his governorship and command at any moment on the summons of the senate, provided Pompeius would do the same; he might safely do so, for Pompeius without his Italo-Spanish command was no longer formidable. Pompeius again for that very reason could not avoid refusing; his reply - that Caesar must first resign, and that he meant speedily to follow the example thus set - was the less satisfactory, that he did not even specify a definite term for his retirement. Again the decision was delayed for months; Pompeius and the Catonians, perceiving the dubious humour of the majority of the senate, did not venture to bring Curio's proposal to a vote. Caesar employed the summer in establishing the state of peace in the regions which he had conquered, in holding a great review of his troops on the Scheldt, and in making a triumphal march through the province of North Italy, which was entirely devoted to him; autumn found him in Ravenna, the southern frontier-town of his province.
The vote which could no longer be delayed on Curio's proposal at length took place, and exhibited the defeat of the party of Pompeius and Cato in all its extent. By 370 votes against 20 the senate resolved that the proconsuls of Spain and Gaul should both be called upon to resign their offices; and with boundless joy the good burgesses of Rome heard the glad news of the saving achievement of Curio. Pompeius was thus recalled by the senate no less than Caesar, and while Caesar was ready to comply with the command, Pompeius positively refused obedience. The presiding consul Gaius Marcellus, cousin of Marcus Marcellus and like the latter belonging to the Catonian party, addressed a severe lecture to the servile majority; and it was, no doubt, vexatious to be thus beaten in their own camp and beaten by means of a phalanx of poltroons. But where was victory to come from under a leader, who, instead of shortly and distinctly dictating his orders to the senators, resorted in his old days a second time to the instructions of a professor of rhetoric, that with eloquence polished up afresh he might encounter the youthful vigour and brilliant talents of Curio?
The coalition, defeated in the senate, was in the most painful position. The Catonian section had undertaken to push matters to a rupture and to carry the senate along with them, and now saw their vessel stranded after a most vexatious manner on the sandbanks of the indolent majority. Their leaders had to listen in their conferences to the bitterest reproaches from Pompeius; he pointed out emphatically and with entire justice the dangers of the seeming peace; and, though it depended on himself alone to cut the knot by rapid action, his allies knew very well that they could never expect this from him, and that it was for them, as they had promised, to bring matters to a crisis. After the champions of the constitution and of senatorial government had already declared the constitutional rights of the burgesses and of the tribunes of the people to be meaningless formalities[22], they now found themselves driven by necessity to treat the constitutional decision; of the senate itself in a similar manner and, as the legitimate government would not let itself be saved with its own consent, to save it against its will. This was neither new nor accidental; Sulla[23] and Lucullus[24] had been obliged to carry every energetic resolution conceived by them in the true interest of the government with a high hand irrespective of it, just as Cato and his friends now proposed to do; the machinery of the constitution was in fact utterly effete, and the senate was now - as the comitia had been for centuries - nothing but a worn-out wheel slipping constantly out of its track.
It was rumoured (Oct. 704) that Caesar had moved four legions from Transalpine into Cisalpine Gaul and stationed them at Placentia. This transference of troops was of itself within the prerogative of the governor; Curio moreover palpably showed in the senate the utter groundlessness of the rumour; and they by a majority rejected the proposal of the consul Gaius Marcellus to give Pompeius on the strength of it orders to march against Caesar. Yet the said consul, in concert with the two consuls elected for 705 who likewise belonged to the Catonian party, proceeded to Pompeius, and these three men by virtue of their own plenitude of power requested the general to put himself at the head of the two legions stationed at Capua, and to call the Italian militia to arms at his discretion. A more informal authorization for the commencement of a civil war can hardly be conceived; but people had no longer time to attend to such secondary matters; Pompeius accepted it. The military preparations, the levies began; in order personally to forward them, Pompeius left the capital in December 704.
Caesar had completely attained the object of devolving the initiative of civil war on his opponents. He had, while himself keeping on legal ground, compelled Pompeius to declare war, and to declare it not as representative of the legitimate authority, but as general of an openly revolutionary minority of the senate which overawed the majority. This result was not to be reckoned of slight importance, although the instinct of the masses could not and did not deceive itself for a moment as to the fact that the war concerned other things than questions of formal law. Now, when war was declared, it was Caesar's interest to strike a blow as soon as possible. The preparations of his opponents were just beginning and even the capital was not occupied. In ten or twelve days an army three times as strong as the troops of Caesar that were in Upper Italy could be collected at Rome; but still it was not impossible to surprise the city undefended, or even perhaps by a rapid winter campaign to seize all Italy, and to shut off the best resources of his opponents before they could make them available. The sagacious and energetic Curio, who after resigning his tribunate (10 Dec. 704) had immediately gone to Caesar at Ravenna, vividly represented the state of things to his master; and it hardly needed such a representation to convince Caesar that longer delay now could only be injurious. But, as he with the view of not giving his antagonists occasion to complain had hitherto brought no troops to Ravenna itself, he could for the present do nothing but despatch orders to his whole force to set out with all haste; and he had to wait till at least the one legion stationed in Upper Italy reached Ravenna. Meanwhile he sent an ultimatum to Rome, which, if useful for nothing else, by its extreme submissiveness still farther compromised his opponents in public opinion, and perhaps even, as he seemed himself to hesitate, induced them to prosecute more remissly their preparations against him.