His only protection against all these foes was Pompeius, and the latter had every reason to defend his ablest, boldest, and most faithful adjutant at any price; but here, as everywhere, he knew not how to use his power and to defend his clients, as Caesar defended his; in the end of 700 the jurymen found Gabinius guilty of extortions and sent him into banishment.
On the whole, therefore, in the sphere of the popular elections and of the jury-courts it was the regents that fared worst.
The factors which ruled in these were less tangible, and therefore more difficult to be terrified or corrupted than the direct organs of government and administration.

The holders of power encountered here, especially in the popular elections, the tough energy of a close oligarchy--grouped in coteries--which is by no means finally disposed of when its rule is overthrown, and which is the more difficult to vanquish the more covert its action.
They encountered here too, especially in the jury-courts, the repugnance of the middle classes towards the new monarchical rule, which with all the perplexities springing out of it they were as little able to remove.

They suffered in both quarters a series of defeats.

The election-victories of the opposition had, it is true, merely the value of demonstrations, since the regents possessed and employed the means of practically annulling any magistrate whom they disliked; but the criminal trials in which the opposition carried condemnations deprived them, in a way keenly felt, of useful auxiliaries.

As things stood, the regents could neither set aside nor adequately control the popular elections and the jury-courts, and the opposition, however much it felt itself straitened even here, maintained to a certain extent the field of battle.
Literature of the Opposition It proved, however, yet a more difficult task to encounter the opposition in a field, to which it turned with the greater zeal the more it was dislodged from direct political action.