Confident that Clodius possessed the energy to protect the triumvirate’s interests, Caesar removed himself to his province. But Clodius, buoyed by his unexpectedly easy triumph over Cicero, now directed his hostilities against Pompey. The contest soon led to violence. The tribune intended to raise his stature by challenging Rome’s most powerful man and, at the same time, hoped to deploy optimate resentment of Pompey in sustaining his senatorial acceptability. Before the year was out, Clodius had driven Pompey from public life.
Pompey responded to the tribune’s attacks by laying the groundwork for the restoration of Cicero, a move that would unambiguously demonstrate his political superiority. In the following year, when Clodius was no longer tribune, Pompey forged a coalition of senators, equestrians, and the prosperous classes throughout Italy. Clodius, however, preserved his hold on the loyalty of the urban plebs, whose violence remained a formidable weapon. Two tribunes, T. Annius Milo and P. Sestius, each a supporter of Pompey’s effort to recall Cicero, responded by equipping private guards. The clashes between these rival forces rendered 57 a year of terrible urban violence. Pompey was undaunted, and the centuriate assembly, packed with voters from throughout Italy, overwhelmingly passed into law a measure restoring Cicero from exile.
Pompey’s success had been stunning. On Cicero’s proposal, he was awarded a special command that put him in charge of Rome’s grain supply. Recent shortages had made clear the need for senatorial attention, and Pompey’s appointment, it was hoped by Cicero as well as by Pompey, would put Clodius’ legislation permanently in the shade.
Yet by his very victory Pompey renewed the resentment against him that Clodius had hoped to exploit. The consular elections for 56 returned Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus, an open opponent of the triumvirs, and L. Marcius Philippus, the father-in-law of Cato. Crowds, led by Clodius, chanted denunciations of Pompey, whom they castigated for his failure to resolve the grain shortage. Pompey confided to Cicero that he was certain that Crassus and Clodius were combining against him, and that the optimates approved.
Caesar’s enemies were also mobilizing themselves: a tribune attempted to recall Caesar for trial, while L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, a candidate for the consulship of 55, declared his intention to terminate Caesar’s command as soon as possible.36 Less bold, Cicero also hoped to exploit Caesar’s vulnerability: he suggested that the Senate should once more take up Caesar’s agrarian legislation, the modification of which might help to provide funds necessary to assist Pompey in securing grain for the city.
The triumvirate was in danger of fragmentation: the remedy was an expansion of its resources. During the spring of 56 Caesar met with several important senators, the most distinguished of whom was Appius Claudius Pulcher, Clodius’ eldest brother. Caesar conferred with Crassus at Ravenna and with Pompey at Luca. The result of these negotiations was not merely the reaffirmation of the triumvirs’ friendship, but their alliance with the Claudii Pulchri (one of Pompey’s sons now married a daughter of Appius Claudius) and their insistence on the complete loyalty of Cicero.37 Clodius immediately became a public champion of Pompey’s interests, while, in the Senate, Cicero vigorously opposed attempts to truncate Caesar’s command.
The principal goal of the new coalition was a second consulship for Crassus and Pompey. But the triumvirs could no longer be certain of election, not least because Domitius Ahenobarbus would be a formidable candidate. Their scheme was to employ popular violence in order to block elections until the following year, when regular elections, conducted under the presidency of a consul, would be replaced, owing to the absence of consuls (their terms expired even if no new consuls had been elected), by an interregnum, during which process an interrex would be appointed every five days until new consuls were selected. The interrex proposed only two candidates to the People, so the triumvirs’ goal was to prevent action until Crassus and Pompey were put forward by a friendly interrex. Even then, their election was marred by disturbances and by death. Elections for the remaining magistracies were also disrupted: Vatinius and Milo won election to the praetorship; Cato was defeated.
The new consuls oversaw the election of censors, as they had done in 70, and they quickly introduced beneficial legislation: the courts were reformed, and unsavory electioneering practices were curbed. But there were political spoils to be claimed. Caesar’s tenure in Gaul was extended for five years; new commands were created for the consuls. Crassus received Syria, from which base he intended an invasion of Parthia, whence (he anticipated) glory and treasure to match his colleague and Caesar. Pompey was assigned the Spanish provinces. Since he continued to be in charge of Rome’s grain supply, Pompey decided to manage Spain by means of his legates. In the next year, then, Pompey would possess an accumulation of promagistracies, one of which allowed him to command legions in a distant province while he remained in the vicinity of Rome, a situation that adumbrated the mechanics of the government of the future emperor Augustus. His stature was now quite simply incomparable, and it was dramatically emphasized when Pompey dedicated, with sensational games, his splendid complex on the Campus Martius that included a portico and Rome’s first permanent theater.
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