With the next year, Cæsar’s proconsulship was to expire. He now, after a lapse of ten years, stood for a second consulship, and asked for a triumph beforehand; so that he might keep his army together, and disband it when that was over, as Pompey had done after the war with Mithridates. He wanted to be allowed to become a candidate at the consular election while still in his province,—an irregularity which had crept in during the seventh century,—and then to lead his army to Rome, and triumph. To prevent such a thing, it had been the rule, we do not know for how long, that no one who had an army should stand for the consulship. His opponents therefore demanded that he should lay down the _imperium_; disband his troops, that is to say, give up his triumph; and stand for the consulship as a private person. Had he thus delivered himself into the hands of his enemies, he was convinced that he would have lost his life. Curio now moved that Cæsar and Pompey should both disband their troops, and come to Rome as private persons; which was the fairest proposal. But the friends of Pompey maintained that, as the term of his _imperium_ was not yet come to an end, he ought not to be placed on an equal footing with Cæsar. It was the misfortune of Italy that Pompey, who was dangerously ill, did not then die: he was indeed so popular, or so dreaded, that all Italy prayed for his recovery. Pompey seemingly was ready to submit to the humiliation, though indeed he complained bitterly of the slight put upon him. Curio’s motion was carried by a majority of three hundred against about twenty;[11] but the consul Marcellus cancelled the decree. The aristocrats of that day professed to uphold the decrees of the senate, whereas in reality they wanted to rule the senate with a rod of iron; and so they did not even scorn the help of the rabble, being in every sense of the word _populaciers_, if it suited their ends: they would raise an outcry against rebellion, and yet they were the rankest revolutionists, if matters did not go on quite as they wished. Thus the party of Lamennais, as soon as the government does anything that they dislike, at once begin to preach regicide and revolution. I have heard men of the extreme right in France talking like Jacobins, uttering it as their opinion that the people of the very lowest class were gifted with an immense deal of sense, and that they showed the highest interest in the welfare of the country. Curio also did not make his proposal from any good motive: this he cannot have credit for, being one of those to whom the worst confusion is the most welcome state of things.