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104 avoid carefully any interference with Asia Minor or Syria or the Greek islands. Possibly he might have made it a merit with Pompey, to refrain from any action which could trench on this, Pompey's doubted sphere of influence. At any rate the game of the democratic party was to allow Pompey to settle the East as he pleased and to return quietly to Rome, while they established a rival power for themselves in Egypt or elsewhere. Meanwhile they would have ample means at their disposal to provide for their more hungry partisans, and so to put off any premature attempts at revolution.

It may be doubted whether Cicero himself fully understood the plan on which Cæsar was working when he encouraged Rullus to propose this law. The main lines of that plan can now be clearly traced by the light of Cæsar's subsequent action in Gaul; but at the moment they were not so obviously discernible. In the meantime, however, it was quite clear that a blow was being aimed at Pompey, and Cicero justly thought that it was his first business to parry that blow. If the main object of the bill was dangerous to the future peace of the State and the stability of the constitution, the most tempting points for criticism were those which seemed to portend a speedy collision with Pompey. On these Cicero directed his main attack, and the bill was so loosely and clumsily drawn that it was easy to construe its provisions as an outrage on Pompey's dignity. All the sources of revenue with which Pompey had enriched the State, all the kingdoms and cities which he had conquered, and whose affairs he was in the