[-54-] On accomplishing this he thought he had gained a sufficient means of access to the consulship and set out hastily, even before his successor arrived, to the elections. He decided to seek the position even before asking for a triumph, since it was not possible to hold a festival beforehand. He was refused the triumph, for Cato opposed him with might and main. However, he let that go, hoping to perform many more and greater exploits and celebrate corresponding triumphs, if elected consul. Besides the omens previously recited, on which, he at all times greatly prided himself, was the fact that a horse of his had been born with clefts in the hoofs of its front feet, and bore him proudly, whereas it would not endure any other rider. Consequently his expectations were of no small character, so that he willingly resigned the triumphal celebration and entered the city to canvass for office. Here he courted Pompey and Crassus and the rest so skillfully that though they were still at enmity with each other, and their political clubs were likewise, and though each opposed everything that he learned the other wished, he won them over and was unanimously appointed by them all. This evidences his cleverness in the greatest degree that he should have known and arranged the occasions and the amount of his services so well as to attach them both to him when they were working against each other. [-55-] He was not even satisfied with this, but actually reconciled them, not because he was desirous of having them agree, but because he saw that they were the most powerful persons. And he understood well that without the aid of both or of one he could never come to any great power; but if he should make a friend of merely either one of them, he should by that fact find the other his antagonist and should suffer more reverses through him than he would win success by the support of the other. For, on the one hand, it seemed to him that all men work more strenuously against their enemies than they coöperate with their friends, not merely as a corollary of the fact that anger and hate impel more earnest endeavor than any friendship, but also because, when one man works for himself, and a second for another, success does not hold a like amount of pleasure or failure of pain in the two cases. Per contra he reflected that it was handier to get in people's way and prevent their reaching any prominence than to be willing to lead them to great heights. The chief reason for this was that he who keeps another from attaining magnitude pleases others as well as himself, whereas he who exalts another renders him burdensome to both those parties.