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53 B.C.]

Crassus and his army in Mesopotamia. This disaster entailed on the Romans much anxiety for the safety of the eastern portion of their empire. But the external danger passed away without serious consequences, and the death of Crassus was important chiefly as it affected the situation of Roman leaders and Roman parties. For Cæsar it was a most untoward event; it deprived him of a reserved force on whose co-operation he might rely in case of a civil war with Pompey. To such an issue the Roman factions were now slowly but surely drifting. Pompey was becoming thoroughly alarmed at the growing power and great position of Cæsar, and the leaders of the optimate party now, when it was too late, began to open their eyes to the true state of the case. They recognised that they had taken right in the wrong direction, and that the only chance for the Republic was staked on the sword of the man whom they had opposed and distrusted for the last twenty years. Pompey on his side was glad to draw towards that party to which his nature and aspirations would always have attached him, if he had not been kept aloof by the folly of its leaders. He marked his new departure by declining Cæsar's offer of the hand of his niece Octavia, and by arranging a marriage with Cornelia, daughter of Scipio Metellus, one of the chief men of the optimate party.

A gap of two years and a half occurs at this period in the correspondence between Cicero and Atticus. From the end of the year 54 B.C. onwards the two appear to have been constantly together in