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 after the consulship, early in 58, he started for Gaul, from which he did not return to Rome till he came in arms in. But though occupied during the summers in his famous campaigns beyond the Alps, he spent most of his winters in Northern Italy—at Ravenna or Lucca—where he received his partisans and was kept in touch with home politics, and was probably visited by his relatives. Just before entering on his consulship he had formed with Pompey and Crassus the agreement for mutual support known as the First Triumvirate. The series of events which broke up this combination and made civil war inevitable must have been well known to the boy. He must have been aware that the laurelled despatches of his great-uncle announcing victory after victory were viewed with secret alarm by many of the nobles who visited Philippus; and that these men were seeking to secure in Pompey a leader capable of out-shining Cæsar in the popular imagination triumphs of his own.

by victories and

He was old enough

to understand

the meaning of the riots of the rival law-breakers, Milo and Clodius, which

drenched

Rome in blood.

Election after

election was interrupted, and, finally, after the murder of Clodius (January, B.c. 52), all eyes were fixed on Pompey as the sole hope of peace and order.

There was much talk of

naming him dictator, but finally he was created sole consul (apparently by a decree of the Senate) and remained sole consul till August, when he held an election and returned his father-in-law, Metellus Scipio, as his colleague. The upshot of these disorders, therefore, was to give Pompey a very strong position.

He was, in fact, dictator (seditionis

sedanda causa) under another name ; position after

Optimates champion.

hastened

to

secure

him

and as

the their

A law had been passed in b.c. 56,

by agreement with Caesar, giving Pompey the whole of Spain as a province for five years after his consulship of b.c. 55.

As

Caesar’s government of Gaul terminated at the end of B.c. 49,