Cato declared that he was for no innovations whatever; yet he made them more than ever indispensable by his own opposition. No less than Cicero, he threw the blame on the vices of society; but whilst Cicero wavered often through the natural fickleness of his mind, Cato, with the systematic tenacity of a stoic, remained inflexible in the application of absolute rules. He opposed everything, even schemes of the greatest utility; and, standing in the way of all concession, rendered personal animosities as hard to reconcile as political factions. He had separated Pompey from the Senate by causing all his proposals to be rejected; he had refused him his niece, notwithstanding the advantage for his party of an alliance which would have impeded the designs of Cæsar.[1047] Regardless of the political consequences of a system of extreme rigour, he had caused Metellus to be deposed when he was tribune, and Cæsar when he was prætor; he caused Clodius to be put upon his trial; he impeached his judges, without any foresight of the fatal consequences of an investigation which called in question the honour of an entire order. This immoderate zeal had rendered the knights hostile to the Senate; they became still more so by the opposition offered by Cato to the reduction of the price of the farms of Asia.[1048] And thus Cicero, seeing things in their true light, wrote as follows to Atticus: “With the best intentions in the world, Cato is ruining us: he judges things as if we were living in Plato’s Republic, while we are only the dregs of Romulus.”[1049] Nothing, then, arrested the march of events; the party of resistance hurried them forward more rapidly than any other. It was evident that they progressed towards a revolution; and a revolution is like a river, which overflows and inundates. Cæsar aimed at digging a bed for it. Pompey, seated proudly at the helm, thought he could command the waves that were sweeping him along. Cicero, always irresolute, at one moment allowed himself to drift with the stream, at another thought himself able to stem it with a fragile bark. Cato, immovable as a rock, flattered himself that alone he could resist the irresistible stream that was carrying away the old order of Roman society. CHAPTER IV. (693-695.) [Sidenote: Cæsar Proprætor in Spain (693).]