Cicero, Pompey's exact contemporary, presents a similarly complex, if less sinister, political image. By
conviction he was a conservative, by temperament a moderate, while his municipal equestrian
background gave him a certain perspective on the Roman scene. To enhance the favour his forensic
work could bring him, Cicero identified himself with the rising star, prosecuting in 70 the man who had
mistreated Pompey's Sicilian clients and going on to support the proposal to give Pompey the
Mithridatic command. In the first he castigated the corruption of senatorial juries; in the second he
lamented the sufferings of the Asian publicani. These were themes to attract the equites, but in 65 he
defended Pompey's ex-quaestor Cornelius and the radical activities of his tribunate, with moving appeals
to the ancient struggles of the plebs. His famous doctrine of the concordia ordinum (harmony of the
orders) was more in line with Sulla, who had himself broadened the composition of the Senate: the
upper orders, senators and equites, were to fulfil their different public obligations and co-operate against
revolutionary movements. But when Cicero opposed a whole series of tribunician proposals which
appealed to the rural and urban poor, he said, and no doubt partly believed, that he was a popularis
consul safeguarding the true interests of the people.
Cicero believed that in 63 he had actually achieved the concordia ordinum and indeed a wider
'consensus of right-thinking men' against the subversive movement of Catiline. The Senate, too, was in
elated mood and, led by a young man who succeeded by force of personality in persuading his peers that
he embodied old republican morality, faced the demands of the triumphant Pompey in an
uncompromising spirit. Pompey wanted a marriage alliance with Cato, but, to the disappointment of the
women of his family, Cato said 'No'. Pompey wanted the Senate to ratify his eastern arrangements,
which reversed many decisions of Lucullus, immediately and en bloc; Cato, a relative of Lucullus, and
others said 'No'. Pompey wanted to distribute to his veterans and needy citizens Italian land, including
the ager Campanus which even the Gracchi had spared; here even Cicero said 'No', for the rents from the
Campanian land provided the closest, and hence the most reliable, source of public revenue.
Cato had the bit between his teeth. One of the effects of the civil wars of Sulla and Marius had been to
deprive Rome of the men who should have been her senior statesmen. Those that were left were often
too inclined, Cicero thought, to "withdraw to their luxurious villas and fishponds and lead a life of
cultured ease. Hence there was room for a strong character such as M. Porcius Cato to become a leader
of the Senate before he had held the praetorship. Pompey was not his only target. Cato offended the
equites by threatening the long-standing immunity from prosecution for bribery that equestrian jurors
enjoyed. In addition he opposed making any concession to the publicani who had overbid for the tax-
contract in Asia in the expectation that the province would quickly return to normal after the Mithridatic
War. Here Cicero parted company with him. Cato was destroying the concordia ordinum: he behaved 'as
if he were living in Plato's Republic and not in the cesspool of Romulus'.
Crassus
In the course of his crusade, Cato alienated not only Pompey but Crassus who had urged the tax-farmers
to ask for a remission of their contract. The importance of Marcus Crassus is easier to demonstrate than
to explain. He was a decent orator, but easily surpassed by Cicero; he was a talented general, but