that his arrangements should be sanctioned en bloc. The Senate refused to do this, and insisted that each detail should be reviewed and voted on separately. Thus Pompey was exposed at every point to a galling and wearisome opposition.
His own proceedings showed, as usual, clumsiness and want of tact. By a lavish expenditure of money he succeeded in thrusting in one of his adherents, Afranius, as consul for the year 60 B.C.; but Afranius was disliked by every one and was quite incapable of serving his master effectively. "He is such an absolute nonentity," writes Cicero,[1] "that he does not know what he has bought"; and again: "He conducts himself in such a way that his office is not so much a consulship as a blot on the reputation of our Great One."[2]
The other consul was Metellus Celer, the brother of Cicero's old opponent Nepos. Celer has left record of what manner of man he was in a curiously insolent letter which he addressed to Cicero at the time of the dispute with his brother, a letter which Cicero answered with admirable spirit and temper.[3] If we may trust Cicero's judgment,[4] Celer was not a bad man at bottom, and meant well by his country; but he must have been a very stupid and wrong-headed politician. He now set himself in violent opposition to Pompey, and thwarted all his efforts to provide for his soldiers. This object had been
