“Moreover, there has been a question of giving Cæsar ten lieutenants: some absolutely opposed the grant, others required precedents; these would have put off the consideration to another day; those granted it, without employing flattering terms. Under these circumstances, from the manner in which I spoke, everybody understood that, while I sought to serve the interests of the Republic, I did still more to honour Cæsar.” In another speech, the same orator exclaims: “The Senate has decreed Cæsar public prayers in the most honourable form, and for a number of days hitherto without example. In spite of the exhausted state of the treasury, it has provided for the pay of his victorious army; it has decided that ten lieutenants shall be given to the general, and that, by derogation of the law Sempronia, a successor should not be sent him. It was I who moved these measures, and who spoke in support of them; and, rather than listen to my old disagreement with Cæsar, I lent myself to what is demanded, under present circumstances, by the interest of the Republic and the need of peace.”[651] But if in public Cicero expressed himself with so much clearness, in his private intercourse he was still tender of the opinion of his former friends. It is, indeed, the only manner in which we can explain a contradiction too glaring even in a temper so inconstant. In fact, at the moment when he was boasting openly of the services he had assisted in rendering to Cæsar, he wrote to his friend P. Lentulus, proconsul in Cilicia: “They have just granted Cæsar subsidies and ten lieutenants, and they have paid no regard to the law Sempronia, which required that a successor should be given to him. But it is too sorrowful a subject, and I will not dwell upon it.”[652] [Sidenote: Intrigues of Pompey and Crassus to obtain the Consulship.] VII. From what precedes, it is evident that unpopularity did not fall upon Cæsar, but upon the means employed by Crassus and Pompey for the purpose of obtaining the consulship. They made use of Caius Cato, kinsman of the Stoic, and of other men equally undeserving of esteem, to cause delay in the time of holding the comitia, and thus lead to the creation of an interrex,[653] which would facilitate their election, since the consuls, who were the ordinary presidents of the assembly of the people, were opposed to them.