So the ruler had arisen in the east, the throne had been erected in Italy; to all appearance the year 692 was the last of the republic, the first of monarchy.
The Opponents of the Future Monarchy This goal, it is true, was not to be reached without a struggle.
The constitution, which had endured for five hundred years, and under which the insignificant town on the Tiber had risen to unprecedented greatness and glory, had sunk its roots into the soil to a depth beyond human ken, and no one could at all calculate to what extent the attempt to overthrow it would penetrate and convulse civil society.

Several rivals had been outrun by Pompeius in the race towards the great goal, but had not been wholly set aside.

It was not at all beyond reach of calculation that all these elements might combine to overthrow the new holder of power, and that Pompeius might find Quintus Catulus and Marcus Cato united in opposition to him with Marcus Crassus, Gaius Caesar, and Titus Labienus.

But the inevitable and undoubtedly serious struggle could not well be undertaken under circumstances more favourable.
It was in a high degree probable that, under the fresh impression of the Catilinarian revolt, a rule which promised order and security, although at the price of freedom, would receive the submission of the whole middle party--embracing especially the merchants who concerned themselves only about their material interests, but including also a great part of the aristocracy, which, disorganized in itself and politically hopeless, had to rest content with securing for itself riches, rank, and influence by a timely compromise with the prince; perhaps even a portion of the democracy, so sorely smitten by the recent blows, might submit to hope for the realization of a portion of its demands from a military chief raised to power by itself.

But, whatever might be the position of party-relations, of what importance, in the first instance at least, were the parties in Italy at all in presence of Pompeius and his victorious army?
Twenty years previously Sulla, after having concluded a temporary peace with Mithradates, had with his five legions been able to carry a restoration runningcounter to the natural development of things in the face of the whole liberal party, which had been arming en masse for years, from the moderate aristocrats and the liberal mercantile class down to the anarchists.