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Suspicion went so far against the senators favourable to the reforms of Drusus, that soon afterwards the consul Lupus reported from the camp to the senate regarding the communications that were constantly maintained between the Optimates in his camp and the enemy; a suspicion which, it is true, was soon shown to be unfounded by the arrestof Marsian spies.
In this assembly, the king, the prelates, the dukes, the ealdormen, and the optimates passed judgment upon all great offenders. The sovereign could not compel the obedience of the different nations composing the Anglo-Saxon empire.
Caesar, whether he believed them sincere or not, had taken them at their word, and came daily to the Senate unarmed and without a guard. He had a protection in the people. If the optimates killed him without preparation, they knew that they would be immediately massacred.
Most of the Optimates, indeed, came as emigrants of quality with great pretensions and small desire for fighting, so that they had to listen to bitter language from Sulla himself regarding the noble lords who wished to have themselves preserved for the good of the state and could not even be brought to arm their slaves.
I give the orator's words below in his own language, because in no other way can any idea of the sound be conveyed. There is, too, a definition made very cleverly to suit his own point of view between the conservatives and the liberals of the day. "Optimates" is the name by which the former are known; the latter are called "Populares."
Suspicion clung longest to Carbo, probably as the man who had lately come into the most direct conflict with his supposed victim; even Carbo's subsequent conversion to conservatism could not clear his name, and his guilt seems to have been almost an article of faith amongst the optimates of the Ciceronian period. But there were other versions which hinted at domestic crime.
But on that side were the "optimates," the men who, if they did not lead, ought to lead the Republic; those who, if they were not respectable, ought to be so; those who, if they did not love their country, ought to love it. If there was a hope, it was with them.
Finally the angry debate ended, because it was a physical impossibility to continue longer. Senators went away with dark frowns or care-knit foreheads. Out in the Forum bands of young "Optimates" were shouting for Pompeius, and cursing Cæsar and his followers.
The strict Optimates alone, with Quintus Catulus at their head, showed at least their colours and spoke against the proposition. Of course it was converted into law by a majority bordering on unanimity.
Carbo was probably on his way to the Optimates, and Flaccus's failure was too recent to make him valuable in any other quality than that of an assistant. But Caius had risen through the opportunities given by the agitation which these men had sustained, although his advance to the foremost place seemed more like the work of destiny than of design.
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