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you used to declare it would be, though I could never believe it, full of honour and influence; these have been restored to me, my dear brother, and with me to yourself, by your patience, your courage, your devotion, and your affection." The acquittal of Sestius confirmed him in this opinion. The tide of public feeling, which had borne him in triumph home, seemed still to be setting steadily in his favour. He thought himself able to take a stronger line in politics; and now, as before his exile, his main object was to draw Pompey over to the side of the constitution. He had marked Pompey's distrust of Cæsar, and he seems to have believed that the confederacy between them was fast breaking up. At any rate he was satisfied that Pompey would see without displeasure an assault on the Julian legislation, and Cicero resolved to deliver that assault in person.

The point selected for attack was the vexed question of the public lands in Campania. It seems that Pompey's veterans had been provided for elsewhere, on lands acquired by purchase, and that this Campanian land was destined for distribution among the poor citizens. Thus Pompey's interests were not directly involved in upholding Cæsar's law. At the end of the year 57, one of the tribunes, a supporter of Pompey, had mentioned the matter in a tentative way, and now on the 5th of April Cicero brought it again to the notice of the Senate "which was as uproarious," he says, "as if it had been a public meeting." On