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However, though all the rest declined to be candidates for the consulship, Cato encouraged and persuaded Lucius Domitius not to desist, for the struggle with the tyrants, he said, was not for office, but for liberty. But Pompey and his partisans, seeing the firmness of Cato, and fearing lest, having all the senate with him, he should draw away and pervert the sound-minded among the people, would not suffer Domitius to go down into the forum,

but sent armed men and slew the link-bearer who was leading his company, and put the rest to flight; Cato was the last to retire, after being wounded in the right arm while he was fighting to defend Domitius. By such a path they made their way into the office they sought, nor even then did they behave more decently. But first of all, while the people were casting their votes for the election of Cato to the praetorship, Pompey dissolved the assembly, alleging an inauspicious omen, and after corrupting the tribes with money, they proclaimed Vatinius praetor instead of Cato.

Then, by means of Trebonius, a tribune, they introduced laws which, according to the agreement, continued his provinces to Caesar for a second term of five years, gave Crassus Syria and the expedition against the Parthians, and to Pompey himself the whole of Africa, both Spains, and four legions; of these he lent two to Caesar, at his request, for the war in Gaul.

But although Crassus went out to his province at the expiration of his consulship,

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Pompey opened his theatre and held gymnastic and musical contests at its dedication, and furnished combats of wild beasts in which five hundred lions were killed, and above all, an elephant fight, a most terrifying spectacle.