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of Sestius encouraged Cicero to hope for the restoration of the Republic, or at any rate the dissolution of the coalition, Pompey being still at feud with Crassus (§ 2) and jealous of Caesar.

§ 4. Cicero therefore, partly with a view of widening the breach between Pompey and Caesar, proposed the suspension of Caesar's law about the ager Campanus (see 59 B.C., § 1) on the grounds that the State could not afford any more allotments. This would not affect Pompey, whose veterans had already been provided for, whereas Caesar would be precluded from using the remaining land for his own veterans. He also saw that the repeal of the agrarian law would be followed by that of the Vatinian.

§ 5. Having therefore previously interviewed Crassus at Ravenna, Caesar took him with him to join Pompey at Luca, a town of Liguria in N. Italy; and here the coalition of 60 (see 60 B.C., § 3) was not only renewed but developed into an omnipotent triumvirate who could settle the affairs of the State at their own discretion.

§ 6. This to Cicero, the Republican, and lifelong advocate of concordia ordinum ("the harmony of the senatorial and equestrian orders"), was a crushing political calamity, but he had to bow to the inevitable, and the famous letter 9 in Bk. I. is his apologia for his change of front. Withdrawing his motion on the ager Campanus, he supported a motion in the Senate to provide pay for Caesar's troops and allowing him to appoint ten legati. This was followed by his brilliant speech De provinciis consularibus, practically a panegyric upon Caesar and his achievements in Gaul.