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56 B.C.] Cicero's motion, it was resolved that the question should be submitted formally to the House by the consuls on the Ides of May. This was, as he afterwards said to Lentulus, "to attack the enemy in the very heart of his position."

Pompey showed no displeasure. On the 8th of April Cicero writes to his brother, then acting as Pompey's legate in Sardinia: "Yesterday I dined with Crassipes, and after dinner was carried in a litter to Pompey's garden. I had failed to catch him earlier in the day, as he was from home, and I wished to see him, because I was leaving Rome the next day, and he was bound for Sardinia. I found him at home, and begged him to let you come back as soon as possible. 'You shall have him immediately,' he replied. He was leaving, as he said on the 11th to embark either from Labro or from Pisa." Evidently Cicero told the truth to Lentulus two years later, when he said that Pompey left Rome without giving him a hint that he was offended by his line of action. But a bitter disappointment was in store. The events of the next few days completely altered the situation, and left Cicero in a painful and humiliating position.