The great difficulty in Caesar’s way, over and above his own debts, was the character of the Popular party. It stood, to the majority of Conservatives and men of wealth and standing, for nothing but disorder and insecurity, with revolution in the background. These Conservatives did not see that they were helping to bring about all the things they dreaded by their opposition to change and their effort to keep all power in the hands of their own order, and their fear, distrust, and jealousy of any man of real ability. They drove young able men into the Popular party; and the Popular party to them was always the party of Marius and Cinna. There were in fact too many men in it of low character and reckless ways of life; men like Catiline and his friend Cethegus, like Clodius and Milo. The more clearly Caesar was marked out as the leader of this party the more did the Conservatives dread and hate him. Not without reason did he often think his very life was in danger. It was always possible that riots might break out. If they did the Popular party would be held responsible, and he would suffer for them all. His debts increased this danger. They made him at once reckless and powerless. Yet Caesar’s popularity in Rome was real. At the time when his difficulties were thickest upon him he stood for election, against some of the most honoured and important senators, as Pontifex Maximus, the chief of the State religion. He was under forty; it was a post generally held by an old man; his religious views were known to be extremely ‘advanced’. Moreover, many people whispered that he had been privy to Catiline’s conspiracy, since Catiline was a member of his party. One of the other candidates offered to pay his debts if he would retire. To retire was not Caesar’s way; he regarded the proposal as an insult. As he left home on the day of election he told his mother, to whom he was devoted, that he would return Pontifex or an exile. He was elected. The same immovable courage was shown by Caesar at the time of the Catilinarian conspiracy. The whole machinery of the trial of the conspirators was contrary to the law; the Senate was not a proper Court which could condemn men to death. Caesar knew that he was suspected by many of being involved in the conspiracy and that many would be only too delighted if they could see him in the dock for any reason. Yet he was the one man who dared to point out the illegality and injustice of what was being done and to vote against the death sentence. Caesar’s life was threatened at the time; but afterwards when the excitement died down and people could consider the affair more calmly they saw that he had been right; that he had kept his sense of justice when panic had made the other senators lose theirs altogether.