But their notorious action at this epoch corresponds with striking exactness to the secret action which this report ascribes to them.

The attempt of Crassus, who in this year was censor, officially to enrol the Transpadanes in the burgess-list( 9) was of itself directly a revolutionary enterprise.

It is still more remarkable, that Crassus on the same occasion made preparations to enrol Egypt and Cyprus in the list of Roman domains,( 10) and that Caesar about the same time (689 or 690) got a proposal submitted by some tribunes to the burgesses to send him to Egypt, in order to reinstate king Ptolemaeus whom the Alexandrians had expelled.

These machinations suspiciously coincide with the charges raised by their antagonists.

Certainty cannot be attained on the point; but there is a great probability that Crassus and Caesar had projected a plan to possess themselves of the military dictatorship during the absence of Pompeius; that Egypt was selected as the basis of this democratic military power; and that, in fine, the insurrectionary attempt of 689 had been contrived to realize these projects, and Catilina and Piso had thus been tools in the hands of Crassus and Caesar.
Resumption of the Conspiracy For a moment the conspiracy came to a standstill.