to military power.

As Cesar found the time of his service in Gaul drawing toward
a conclusion, he turned his thoughts more and more toward Rome,
endeavoring to strengthen his interest there by every means in his
power, and to circumvent and thwart the designs of Pompey. He had
agents and partisans in Rome who acted for him and in his name. He
sent immense sums of money to these men, to be employed in such ways
as would most tend to secure the favor of the people. He ordered
the Forum to be rebuilt with great magnificence. He arranged great
celebrations, in which the people were entertained with an endless
succession of games, spectacles, and public feasts. When his
daughter Julia, Pompey's wife, died, he celebrated her funeral with
indescribable splendor. He distributed corn in immense quantities
among the people, and he sent a great many captives home, to be
trained as gladiators to fight in the theatres for their amusement.
In many cases, too, where he found men of talents and influence among
the populace, who had become involved in debt by their dissipations
and extravagance, he paid their debts, and thus secured their
influence on his side. Men were astounded at the magnitude of
these expenditures, and, while the multitude rejoiced thoughtlessly
in the pleasures thus provided for them, the more reflecting and
considerate trembled at the greatness of the power which was so
rapidly rising to overshadow the land.

It increased their anxiety to observe that Pompey was gaining the
same kind of influence and ascendency, too. He had not the advantage
which Cesar enjoyed in the prodigious wealth obtained from the rich
countries over which Cesar ruled, but he possessed, instead of it,
the advantage of being all the time at Rome, and of securing, by