With that we need not concern ourselves as we are dealing with the life of Cicero rather than with Roman history, except to say that Caesar, who was the motive power of the second coalition, could have had no personal hand in that of 71.

Though he had spent his early years in "harassing the aristocracy," as Dean Merivale tells us, he had not been of sufficient standing in men's minds to be put on a par with Pompey and Crassus.

When this First Triumvirate was formed, as the modern world generally calls it, or the second coalition between the democracy and the great military leaders, as Mommsen with greater, but not with perfect, accuracy describes it, Caesar no doubt had at his fingers' ends the history of past years.

"The idea naturally occurred," says Mommsen, "whether * * * an alliance firmly based on mutual advantage might not be established between the democrats, with their ally, Crassus, on the one side, and Pompeius and the great capitalists on the other.

For Pompeius such a coalition was certainly a political suicide."[233] The democracy here means Caesar.