Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/215

60 B.C.] his obstruction to lengths which Flavius considered unfair. The tribune thereupon by virtue of his sacred and inviolable office personally laid hands on the consul, as on one guilty of contempt, and dragged him off to prison. It would have been easy for Metellus to appeal to another tribune to grant him protection; but he preferred the cheap martyrdom with which his adversary provided him. Metellus then sat in his prison, but he issued from thence a summons to the Senate to assemble there. Not to be baffled, the tribune placed his bench across the prison door and his own sacrosanct person on the bench, thus setting an insuperable barrier between the senators and the consul within. The Fathers of the State, thus beaten off in front, made an attack on the rear, and began pulling down the back wall of the prison to get at their consul. When the farce had reached this point, Pompey sent word in hot haste to his tribune that he had better let Metellus out.

Under the effect of these ridiculous proceedings "the agrarian project began to fall flat." The Nobles delighted in the discomfiture of Pompey and gloried in their own outrageous folly. The demands of Pompey were at this time exceedingly moderate; the loyalty and good faith which he had shown in disbanding his army, might fairly claim liberal and friendly treatment; and the constitutionalists were bound in honour to see that Pompey did not lose by his respect for the constitution. Common-sense, too, might have shown them that by a little