ABSTRACT
The elections were now at hand and the contest for the Consulship promised to be exceptionally keen. As the question of the Gallic command was at last to be settled in the course of the year, both parties were more than usually anxious to secure the supreme magistracy. Cæsar, who was still in a moderate mood and would have been satisfied to have one of the Consuls on his side, sent soldiers on furlough to Rome to support his old general, Servius Sulpicius Galba, But the Conservatives put up two candidates against him, Lucius Cornelius Lentulus and Caius Claudius Marcellus; the latter was cousin of the Consul then in office and brother of the Consul of the preceding year, and as ill-disposed as his namesakes to the cause of Cæsar. The reaction against the Democrats was bringing the old aristocratic families back into prominence. There was a desperate conflict, and Cæsar was defeated. His friend and supporter Antony was elected to the Tribuneship, but Galba failed to secure the Consulship. The most important of the offices thus fell into the hands of the Conservatives.
