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266 bitterly; recounted the obligations under which he had laid us and his own stipulations and my brother's engagements as to Cæsar's Acts, and appealed to my brother's own knowledge that all which he had done for my restoration had been done with Cæsar's consent. By way of recommending Cæsar's cause and dignity to me, he begged that I would not assail them, if I could not or would not defend them."

These announcements came as a crushing blow to Cicero. The ground on which he was taking his stand had shifted under his feet. On the Ides of May he absented himself from the Senate, and the discussion fell through. "As for the previous arrangement," he writes, "that the question of the Campanian land was to be dealt with on the 15th and 16th, it was not dealt with. In this matter there is a stoppage in the current of my action."

So far Cicero had no choice but to submit. But he had still to decide how to shape his general policy in view of the altered circumstances. The union, which he had been encouraged to attempt, of Pompey with the Nobles in defence of the constitution against Cæsar was now obviously impossible. Pompey was committed to an entirely different line of action. Lucullus was dead, and the Republic had no general but Pompey, so that it would have been madness to persist in words which could not be supported by deeds. Cicero then must either continue to follow his old leader in this new departure, or else