like lions against the troops sent to destroy them. Thus the insane movement of the military faction was crushed: there remained, however, much of the Catilinarian leaven diffused through Italy――men of broken fortunes and profligate characters, to whom turmoil and riot afforded the only chance of promotion. THE TRIUMVIRATE――CÆSAR’S GALLIC WARS――WAR BETWEEN CÆSAR AND POMPEY. When Pompey returned to Rome (B. C. 61), he found the senatorial party predominant, and Cicero incessantly talking about the Catilinarian conspiracy, and how he had crushed it. Pompey enjoyed a triumph more splendid than any conquering general had received before him; and the sums which he added to the public treasury were enormous; yet he could not procure from the senate that general ratification of his measures in Asia to which he thought himself entitled. Cato and other senators insisted on a full investigation of his measures one by one, ere the sanction which he required should be granted. This conduct on the part of the senators brought Pompey into closer connection with Cæsar; and these two eminent men, finding that they agreed in many of their views, and that at least they were one in their opposition to the senate, resolved to unite their forces so as to work for their common ends with double strength. For various reasons, it was found desirable to admit Crassus to this political partnership; and accordingly, in the year B. C. 60, was formed that famous coalition for mutual support between Pompey, Crassus, and Cæsar, which is known in Roman history by the name of the ‘First Triumvirate.’ Elected to the consulship of the year B. C. 59, Cæsar infused new life into Roman politics, proposing measures of so liberal a nature, and persevering in them with such obstinacy, that the senate became almost frantic, and his colleague Bibulus shut himself up in his house for eight months in disgust. Among these measures was a ratification of Pompey’s proceedings in Asia, and an agrarian law for providing lands for Pompey’s disbanded soldiers and a number of destitute citizens. In the same year Cæsar gave his daughter Julia in marriage to Pompey, who had already been married twice. On retiring from the consulship, he obtained, by an unusual stretch of generosity on the part of the grateful people and the intimidated senate, the supreme command for five years over the two Gauls (Cisalpine and Transalpine) and Illyricum. This was probably the great object of Cæsar’s desires; at all events, it was the best possible thing which could have happened for him and the republic. Master of Gaul, and with an army devoted to his will, he could there mature his power silently and undisturbed, and qualify himself for entering, at the proper period, upon the career for which he was destined, and rescuing, by military force, the ill-governed Empire out of the hands of contending factions.