With Pompey’s accession to the consulship the fortunes of the knights, who had suffered untold disasters under Sulla, reached a turning point. The restoration of the censorship meant among other things that the equestrian corporations were again to be assigned provincial contracts; the restoration of the tribuneship meant that they would not have to appeal to the hostile senate for desired administrative measures; the revision of the court panels gave back to them both power and prestige. Since Pompey proved to be their friend they determined to honor him and use him further. In 67 they demanded that the seas be cleared of pirates so that the commerce in which they were interested would be protected; and they demanded that Pompey be placed in command of the war with extraordinary powers. When the senate objected, the knights, resting their arguments upon Gracchan precedents, took the bill directly to the assembly. The senate considered this revolutionary. The populace, flattered by this appeal to their assembly and favorably disposed to Pompey, supported the knights. When the senate induced a tribune to veto the measure, Gabinius, assuming the validity of the Gracchan theory of “recall,” threatened to present a bill to depose this tribune, thereby forcing him to desist. This was tantamount to accepting the democratic theory of popular sovereignty in its extreme form, and Cicero seems to have acquiesced. At any rate when Cicero mentioned the incident in the _Pro Cornelio_ two years later, he raised no objection to the procedure, and afterwards when he quarreled with Gabinius he did not cast this act in his teeth. In the year 66, when Manilius introduced a proposal to place Pompey in command in Asia, the same coalition of knights and populace again insulted the senate by taking the bill directly to the assembly. On this occasion Cicero was the principal speaker for the coalition; and he spoke as a full-fledged democrat, unashamed. One may of course suppose that Cicero was largely influenced by life-long connections with the knights and by a deep devotion to Pompey, apparently dating from the time when he served under Pompey’s father in the Social War. One also realizes that the Manilian law had a very great practical appeal, and that a rising and ambitious young statesman like Cicero would see the advantage of being chosen as the spokesman for such an important measure of the party then in power. Be that as it may, the speech of that day is the speech of an important and accepted member of the popular-equestrian party.[6]