Consequently he vowed "in future to ask no more after right and honour, but to strive for the favour of the regents". and "to be as flexible as an ear-lap". They used him accordingly as - what he was good for - an advocate; in which capacity it was on various occasions his lot to be obliged to defend his very bitterest foes at a higher bidding, and that especially in the senate, where he almost regularly served as the organ of the dynasts and submitted the proposals "to which others probably consented, but not he himsel"; indeed, as recognized leader of the majority of the compliant, he obtained even a certain political importance. They dealt with the other members of the governing corporation accessible to fear, flattery, or gold in the same way as they had dealt with Cicero, and succeeded in keeping it on the whole in subjection.
Certainly there remained a section of their opponents, who at least kept to their colours and were neither to be terrified nor to be won. The regents had become convinced that exceptional measures, such as those against Cato and Cicero, did their cause more harm than good, and that it was a lesser evil to tolerate an inconvenient republican opposition than to convert their opponents into martyrs for the republic Therefore they allowed Cato to return (end of 698) and thenceforward in the senate and in the Forum, often at the peril of his life, to offer a continued opposition to the regents, which was doubtless worthy of honour, but unhappily was at the same time ridiculous. They allowed him on occasion of the proposals of Trebonius to push matters once more to a hand-to-hand conflict in the Forum, and to submit to the senate a proposal that the proconsul Caesar should be given over to the Usipetes and Tencteri on account of his perfidious conduct toward those barbarians[8]. They were patient when Marcus Favonius, Cato's Sancho, after the senate had adopted the resolution to charge the legions of Caesar on the state-chest, sprang to the door of the senate-house and proclaimed to the streets the danger of the country; when the same person in his scurrilous fashion called the white bandage, which Pompeius wore round his weak leg, a displaced diadem; when the consular Lentulus Marcellinus, on being applauded, called out to the assembly to make diligent use of this privilege of expressing their opinion now while they were still allowed to do so; when the tribune of the people Gaius Ateius Capito consigned Crassus on his departure for Syria, with all the formalities of the theology of the day, publicly to the evil spirits. These were, on the whole, vain demonstrations of an irritated minority; yet the little party from which they issued was so far of importance, that it on the one hand fostered and gave the watchword to the republican opposition fermenting in secret, and on the other hand now and then dragged the majority of the senate, which ithal cherished at bottom quite the same sentiments with reference to the regents, into an isolated decree directed against them.
For even the majority felt the need of giving vent, at least sometimes and in subordinate matters to their suppressed indignation, and especially - after the manner of those who are servile with reluctance - of exhibiting their resentment towards the great foes in rage against the small. Wherever it was possible, a gentle blow was administered to the instruments of the regents; thus Gabinius was refused the thanksgiving-festival that he asked (698); thus Piso was recalled from his province; thus mourning was put on by the senate, when the tribune of the people Gaius Cato hindered the elections for 699 as long as the consul Marcellinus belonging to the constitutional party was in office. Even Cicero, however humbly he always bowed before the regents, issued an equally envenomed and insipid pamphlet against Caesar's father-in-law. But both these feeble signs of opposition by the majority of the senate and the ineffectual resistance of the minority show only the more clearly, that the government had now passed from the senate to the regents as it formerly passed from the burgesses to the senate; and that the senate was already not much more than a monarchical council of state employed also to absorb the anti-monarchical elements. "No man" the adherents of the fallen government complained, "is of the slightest account except the three; the regents are all-powerful, and they take care that no one shall remain in doubt about it; the whole senate is virtually transformed and obeys the dictators; our generation will not live to see a change of things". They were living in fact no longer under the republic, but under monarchy.
But if the guidance of the state was at the absolute disposal of the regents, there remained still a political domain separated in some measure from the government proper, which it was more easy to defend and more difficult to conquer; the field of the ordinary elections of magistrates, and that of the jury-courts. That the latter do not fall directly under politics, but everywhere, and above all in Rome, come partly under the control of the spirit dominating state-affairs, is of itself clear. The elections of magistrates certainly belonged by right to the government proper of the state; but, as at this period the state was administered substantially by extraordinary magistrates or by men wholly without title, and even the supreme ordinary magistrates, if they belonged to the anti-monarchical party, were not able in any tangible way to influence the state-machinery, the ordinary magistrates sank more and more into mere puppets - as, in fact, even those of them who were most disposed to opposition described themselves frankly and with entire justice as powerless ciphers - and their elections therefore sank into mere demonstrations. Thus, after the opposition had already been wholly dislodged from the proper field of battle, hostilities might nevertheless be continued in the field of elections and of processes. The regents spared no pains to remain victors also in this field. As to the elections, they had already at Luca settled between themselves the lists of candidates for the next years, and they left no means untried to carry the candidates agreed upon there. They expended their gold primarily for the purpose of influencing the elections. A great number of soldiers were dismissed annually on furlough from the armies of Caesar and Pompeius to take part in the voting at Rome.
8. V. VII. Fresh Violations of the Rhine-Boundary by the Germans