Nevertheless the republican party was not yet deprived of all hold in the courts, and it was never weary of directing political impeachments, not indeed against the regents themselves, but against their prominent instruments.

This warfare of prosecutions was waged the more keenly, that according to usage the duty of accusation belonged to the senatorial youth, and, as may readily be conceived, there was more of republican passion, fresh talent, and bold delight in attack to be found among these youths than among the older members of their order.

Certainly the courts were not free; if the regents were in earnest, the courts ventured as little as the senate to refuse obedience.

None of their antagonists were prosecuted by the opposition with such hatred--so furious that it almost passed into a proverb--as Vatinius, by far the most audacious and unscrupulous of the closer adherents of Caesar; but his master gave the command, and he was acquitted in all the processes raised against him.

But impeachments by men who knew how to wield the sword of dialectics and the lash of sarcasm as did Gaius Licinius Calvus and Gaius Asinius Pollio, did not miss their mark even when they failed; nor were isolated successes wanting.
They were mostly, no doubt, obtained over subordinate individuals, but even one of the most high-placed and most hated adherents of the dynasts, the consular Gabinius, was overthrown in this way.
Certainly in his case the implacable hatred of the aristocracy, which as little forgave him for the law regarding the conducting of the war with the pirates as for his disparaging treatment of the senate during his Syrian governorship, was combined with the rage of the great capitalists, against whom he had when governor of Syria ventured to defend the interests of the provincials, and even with the resentment of Crassus, with whom he had stood on ceremony in handing over to him the province.