The condemnation of Gabinius, apparently, turned the scale (end of 700).

The regents agreed to introduce a dictatorship, though only a temporary one, and by means of this to carry new coercive measures especially respecting the elections and the jury-courts.

Pompeius, as the regent on whom primarily devolved the government of Rome and Italy, was charged with the execution of this resolve; which accordingly bore the impress of the awkwardness in resolution and action that characterized him, and of his singular incapacity of speaking out frankly, even where he would and could command.

Already at the close of 700 the demand for a dictatorship was brought forward in the senate in the form of hints, and that not by Pompeius himself.

There served as its ostensible ground the continuance of the system of clubs and bands in the capital, which by acts of bribery and violence certainly exercised the most pernicious pressure on the elections as well as on the jury-courts and kept it in a perpetual state of disturbance; we must allow that this rendered it easy for the regents to justify their exceptional measures.