Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/401

46 B.C.] months without consuls or printors, and Cæsar nominated prefects to do their work; sometimes a number of consulships were crowded into a short space, and Rome now contained a consular in whose term of office "no one had breakfasted."

Cæsar's treatment of the Senate was even more inexcusable than his action towards the People or towards the magistrates. It can only be explained on the supposition that his head was turned by the giddy height of supreme power, and that he was no longer the cool and sober politician who had trod the upward way so skilfully. The Senate was the only possible home of free speech and independent counsel, yet we find it exposed in the person of its most distinguished members to wanton insult. Cicero writes to his friend Pætus, who has urged him to remain at Rome and take part in public business: "You cite the example of Catulus and his time. Where is the resemblance? In those days I too was loath to be long away from my post in the State. For then we sat on the poop of the vessel with our hands to the tiller; now there is scarcely a place for us in the hold. Do you suppose that any fewer decrees of the Senate will be passed if I stay at Naples? Why, when I am in Rome, and in the thick of the Forum, the decrees of the Senate are written out at our friend's house; aye, and if it comes into his head, I am set down as one of those who attested the registration, and I get