While the Catonian party and Pompeius had thus at least a tacit understanding as early as the beginning of 702, the alliance might be held as formally concluded, when at the consular elections for 703 there was elected not Cato himself indeed, but--along with an insignificant man belonging to the majority of the senate--one of the most decided adherents of Cato, Marcus Claudius Marcellus.

Marcellus was no furious zealot and still less a genius, but a steadfast and strict aristocrat, just the right man to declare war if war was to be begun with Caesar.

As the case stood, this election, so surprising after the repressive measures adopted immediately before against the republican opposition, can hardly have occurred otherwise than with the consent, or at least under the tacit permission, of the regent of Rome for the time being.

Slowly and clumsily, as was his wont, but steadily Pompeius moved onward to the rupture.
Passive Resistance of Caesar It was not the intention of Caesar on the other hand to fall out at this moment with Pompeius.

He could not indeed desire seriously and permanently to share the ruling power with any colleague, least of all with one of so secondary a sort as was Pompeius; and beyond doubt he had long resolved after terminating the conquest of Gaul to take the sole power for himself, and in case of need to extort it by force of arms.