He was the leader of the conservative party.
The "Optimates," or "Boni," as Cicero indifferently calls them--meaning, as we should say, the upper classes, who were minded to stand by their order--believed in him, though they did not just at that time wish to confide to him the power which the people gave him.

The Senate did not want another Sulla; and yet it was Sulla who had reinstated the Senate.
The Senate would have hindered Pompey, if it could, from his command against the pirates, and again from his command against Mithridates.

But he, nevertheless, was naturally their head, as came to be seen plainly when, seventeen years afterward, Caesar passed the Rubicon, and Cicero in his heart acknowledged Pompey as his political leader while Pompey lived.

This, I think, was the case to a sad extent, as Pompey was incapable of that patriotic enthusiasm which Cicero demanded.

As we go on we shall find that the worst episodes in Cicero's political career were created by his doubting adherence to a leader whom he bitterly felt to be untrue to himself, and in whom his trust became weaker and weaker to the end.
Then came Cicero's Praetorship.