Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/195

62 B.C.] This new union was further cemented by a common fear of the revolutionary designs of Catiline. The Roman Knights could feel no sympathy with the party which had favoured men who conspired to abolish debt and to wage war on capital. Hence it was natural and proper that Cicero and the equestrian party, of which he was one of the acknowledged chiefs, should be on the side of the constitution when the great crisis came. The consul who had risen from the ranks defended the State from revolution as vigorously as the proudest aristocrat could have done, and his success was largely owing to the staunchness with which the equestrian order stood by its leader and by the Senate. To consolidate and perpetuate the "harmony between the orders" thus attained was the dream of Cicero's politics, "the good cause" as he often calls it. His ideal party was to include the moderate men of both orders, and their combination was to present a firm barrier against revolution. As the equestrian order contained not only the great capitalists of Rome but the men of wealth and local importance in the country towns, this "concordia ordinum" implied the "consensio Italiæ," on which the statesman from Arpinum naturally laid great stress.

But no union of parties in Rome could be sufficient unless accompanied by a reconciliation between the civil and the military power. To accomplish this Cicero was anxious to secure Pompey as the leader of his coalition. Seriously as he had crossed the path of his chosen hero, his own loyalty towards him remained unshaken. He marked him out as the