Servilius Isauricus and Catulus, relying on their antecedents, and on the esteem in which they were held, believed themselves the more sure of election, because, since Sylla, the people had not interfered in the nomination of grand pontiff, the college solely making the election. Labienus, to facilitate Cæsar’s access to this high dignity, obtained a plebiscitum restoring the nomination to the suffrages of the people. This manœuvre disconcerted the other competitors without discouraging them, and, as usual, they attempted to seduce the electors with money. All who held with the party of the nobles united against Cæsar, who combated solicitation by solicitation, and sustained the struggle by the aid of considerable loans; he knew how to interest in his success, according to Appian, both the poor that he had paid, and the rich from whom he borrowed.[948] Catulus, knowing Cæsar to be greatly in debt, and mistaking his character, offered him a large sum to desist. He answered him that he would borrow a much greater sum of him if he would support his candidature.[949] At length the great day arrived which was to decide the future of Cæsar; when he started to present himself at the comitia, the most gloomy thoughts agitated his ardent mind, and calculating that if he should not succeed, his debts would constrain him perhaps to go into exile, he embraced his mother and said, “To-day thou wilt see me grand pontiff or a fugitive.”[950] The most brilliant success crowned his efforts, and what added to his joy was his obtaining more votes in the tribes of his adversaries than they had in all the tribes put together.[951] Such a victory made the Senate fear whether Cæsar, strong in his ascendency over the people, might not proceed to the greatest excesses; but his conduct remained the same. Hitherto he had inhabited a very moderate house, in the quarter called Suburra; nominated sovereign pontiff, he was lodged in a public building in the Via Sacra.[952] This new position necessarily obliged him, indeed, to a sumptuous life, if we may judge by the luxuriousness displayed at the reception of a simple pontiff, at which he assisted as king of the sacrifices, and of which Macrobius has preserved to us the curious details.[953] Moreover, he built himself a superb villa on the Lake of Nemi, near Aricia. [Sidenote: Catiline’s Conspiracy.]