consul, restored order, and placed himself at the head of the
aristocratic party which he had deserted to become the great popular
hero when he was consul with Crassus in 70 B.C.

Now Caesar had long watched the astonishing actions of Pompey, and had
no intention of leaving the fate of the republic to him and the
aristocracy. He does not seem to have wished to break altogether with
Pompey, but only to hold him in check. At his meeting with Pompey at
Luca (Lucca) in 56 B.C. he had been promised the consulship for 48
B.C. when his governorship came to an end, and he now determined to
insure the fulfilment of this promise which would place him upon a
legal equality with his rival. For the rest he knew that he was as
superior to Pompey as a statesman as he was as a soldier, and he did
not apparently anticipate any difficulty in out-manoeuvring him in the
senate and in the forum. Caesar, then, claimed no more than an
equality with Pompey and the fulfilment of his promise; but these he
determined to have. All through the winter of 52-51 B.C. he was
arming. Well served by his friends, among whom were Mark Antony and
Curio the tribunes, in 50 B.C., "having gone the circuit for the
administration of justice," as Suetonius tells us, "he made a halt at
Ravenna resolved to have recourse to arms if the senate should proceed
to extremity against the tribunes of the people, who had espoused his
cause." But first he determined for many reasons to send ambassadors
to Rome, to request the fulfilment of the promise made to him at Luca.
Pompey, who was not yet at open enmity with him, determined, although
he had made the promise, neither to aid him by his influence nor
openly to oppose him on this occasion. But the consuls Lentulus and
Marcellus, who had always been his enemies, resolved to use all means
in their power to prevent him gaining his object.