Cæsar’s conquests in Gaul were of course a subject of engrossing interest at Rome, and when the city enjoyed an interval of repose from the commotions caused by Clodius and Milo, nothing else was talked of. ‘Compared with this man,’ said Cicero, ‘what was Marius?’ and the saying was but an expression of the popular enthusiasm. Cæsar’s visits to Britain excited especial interest; and at first there were not wanting sceptics who maintained that there was no such island in existence, and that the alleged visit of Cæsar to that place of savages, where pearls were found in the rivers, was a mere hoax on the public. As, however, the period of Cæsar’s command drew near its close, and it became known that he aspired to a second consulship, the fears of the aristocratic party began to manifest themselves. ‘What may not this conqueror of Gaul do when he returns to Rome?’ was the saying of Cato, and others of the senators. ‘Accustomed during so many years to the large and roomy action of a camp, will he be able to submit again to civic trammels? Will he not rather treat us as if we were his subordinate officers――Roman laws as if they were savage customs――and our city itself as if it were a Gallic forest?’ Unfortunately, also, the Triumvirate no longer existed to support Cæsar’s interests. Crassus was dead; and Pompey――whose connection with Cæsar had been severed by the death of his wife, Cæsar’s beloved daughter Julia (B. C. 54)――had since gone over to the aristocratic party, to which he had formerly belonged, and whose policy was, upon the whole, more genial to his character. In B. C. 52, he enjoyed a third consulship, without a colleague, having been appointed by the senators as the man most likely to restore order to the distracted state; and during the following year, he lent his aid to those enemies of Cæsar who insisted that, ere he should be allowed to stand for the consulship, he should be obliged to resign his Gallic command, and resume his station as a private citizen, ready to meet any charges which might be brought against him. Cæsar did not want agents in Rome――some of them paid, some of them voluntary――to plead his cause; and through these he offered to resign his command, provided Pompey would do the same with regard to Spain. The proposal was not listened to; and a decree of the senate having been passed that Cæsar should disband his army against a certain day, under pain of being treated as a public enemy, his agents left the city, and hastened to his camp in Cisalpine Gaul (B. C. 50).