In its struggle for power, the democracy met a reverse in the suppression of the Catilinarian conspiracy in 63 B.C., so that when Pompey returned from his campaign against Mithridates in the following year, the senate ventured to postpone the ratification of his arrangements in Asia and the reward of his veterans. This forced him to make common cause with the democratic leader Caesar, and with Crassus, whose wealth and financial associates made him a man of great influence. In 60 B.C. these three political leaders formed the compact, known as the First Triumvirate, which directed the politics of Rome through its control of the popular assembly for a number of years.[6] Caesar was given the consulship, and later an important command in Gaul. The death of Crassus in a campaign in Parthia left Caesar and Pompey face-to-face. Pompey who had staid in Rome ultimately threw in his lot with the senatorial party, and, when in 49 B.C. the senate tried to make Caesar give up his Gallic province and the Civil War broke out, Pompey was put in charge of the army operating against Caesar. Caesar’s success in the war made him undisputed master of Rome, and before his death he became dictator for life. The liberators, as they called themselves, made a last stand for the old régime, but were defeated at Philippi, and the victors, Octavius, Antony and Lepidus, formed the Second Triumvirate, the members of which did not content themselves with the unofficial position of political bosses, as Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey had done, but secured a legal basis for their autocratic power through legislation in the popular assembly. Again the elimination of one member of the triumvirate, Lepidus, and the battle of Actium in 31 B.C. left Octavius, or Augustus as we know him in later life, in undisputed control of the state. The revolution was complete. The old machinery of government had broken down under the strain put upon it by the policy of imperialism. Parliamentarism and the narrow policy of a city-state were ill adapted to the government of an empire. The large armies and the long terms of office abroad which Marius and Sulla, Pompey and Caesar had held, had put at their disposal greater resources than the state could command, and the Roman citizens and provincials who had been taught to obey them implicitly in the field maintained their allegiance to their old commanders upon the return of the latter to Italy. 2. POST-AUGUSTAN