Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/270

 262 CAESAR. ate met, and Catulus Lutatius, one of the most eminent Romans of that time, stood up and inveighed against Ca> sar, closing his speech with the remarkable saying, that Csesar was now not working mines, but planting batteries to overthrow the state. But when Cgesar had made an apology for himself, and satisfied the senate, his admirers were very much animated, and advised him not to depart from his own thoughts for any one, since with the people's good favor he would erelong get the better of them all, and be the first man in the commonwealth. At this time, Metellus, the High-Priest, died, and Catulus and Isauricus, persons of the highest reputation, and who had great influence in the senate, were competitors for the office ; yet Ca?sar would not give way to them, but pre- sented himself to the people as a candidate against them. The several parties seeming very equal, Catulus, who, be- cause he had the most honor to lose, was the most appre- hensive of the event, sent to Caesar to buy him off, with offers of a great sum of money. But his answer was, that he was ready to borrow a larger sum than that, to carry on the contest. Upon the day of election, as his mother conducted him out of doors with tears, after em- bracing her, " My mother," he said, " to-day you will see me either High-Priest, or an exile." When the votes were taken, after a great struggle, he carried it, and ex- cited among the senate and nobility great alarm lest he might now urge on the people to every kind of insolence. And Piso and Catulus found fault with Cicero for having let Csesar escape, when in the conspiracy of Catiline he had given the government such advantage against him. For Catiline, who had designed not only to change the present state of affairs, but to subvert the whole empire and con- found all, had himself taken to flight, while the evidence was yet incomplete against him, before his ultimate pur- poses had been properly discovered. But he had left