But the more that his urgent need of the senate became evident, the senators received his wishes with a less pliant and less respectful spirit.

It was immediately discovered in the Sibylline oracles that it was impious to send a Roman army to Egypt; whereupon the pious senate almost unanimously resolved to abstain from armed intervention.

Pompeius was already so humbled, that he would have accepted the mission even without an army; but in his incorrigible dissimulation he left this also to be declared merely by his friends, and spoke and voted for the despatch of another senator.

Of course the senate rejected a proposal which wantonly risked a life so precious to his country; and the ultimate issue of the endless discussions was the resolution not to interfere in Egypt at all (Jan.

698).
Attempt at an Aristocratic Restoration Attack on Caesar's Laws These repeated repulses which Pompeius met with in the senate and, what was worse, had to acquiesce in without retaliation, were naturally regarded--come from what side they would--by the public at large as so many victories of the republicans and defeats of the regents generally; the tide of republican opposition was accordingly always on the increase.