Cæsar had great advantages through his family connections; his position as the legitimate heir of Marius made him already a central figure in the political life of the city, and even Crassus found it advisable to work for him and with him, by advancing him large sums of money to cover the lavish expenditure of the three years’ ædileship. Cæsar was already looking beyond Rome and its purely local interests. That he had no confidence in the kind of government under which he served is shown by pretty clear intimations that he was aware of the existence of a plot, intended to reduce the power of the senatorial oligarchy to zero. It is certain, too, that Cæsar worked hard to secure a military command in Egypt, which was not yet a Roman province and, therefore, could furnish him an admirable vantage ground by its wealth and by its strategical position for blocking the plans of Pompeius, who was working through control of the senatorial oligarchy for a revival in his own hands of personal rule after the Sullan model. This design of Cæsar was a bold one and conceived with a large vision. Its aim was to provide a stronghold for the democracy should the central government, as seemed likely to happen, be manipulated by an irregular dictatorship. The plan may have been suggested by the career of Sertorius in Spain, where this successful opponent of the Sullan régime had so long offered a refuge to all those who were enemies of the oligarchy that ruled the capital. It was characteristic of Cæsar’s confident temperament that he was willing, without previous military training, to undertake a hazardous adventure that meant certainly a conflict with the seasoned generals of the oligarchy.