LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Caesar: Senate
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On January 1, 49, the Senate received from Caesar a proposal that he and Pompey should lay down their commands simultaneously. Caesar's message was peremptory, and the Senate resolved that Caesar should be treated as a public enemy if he did not lay down his command "by a date to be fixed."
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Caesar, being doubly supported by the interests of Crassus and Pompey, was promoted to the consulship, and triumphantly proclaimed with Calpurnius Bibulus. When he entered on his office he brought in bills which would have been preferred with better grace by the most audacious of the tribunes than by a consul, in which he proposed the plantation of colonies and the division of lands, simply to please the commonalty. The best and most honourable of the senators opposed it, upon which, as he had long wished for nothing more than for such a colourable pretext, he loudly protested how much it was against his will to be driven to seek support from the people, and how the senate's insulting and harsh conduct left no other course possible for him than to devote himself henceforth to the popular cause and interest. And so he hurried out of the senate, and presenting himself to the people, and there placing Crassus and Pompey, one on each side of him, he asked them whether they consented to the bills he had proposed. They owned their assent, upon which he desired them to assist him against those who had threatened to oppose him with their swords. They engaged they would, and Pompey added further, that he would meet their swords with a sword and buckler too.
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Since Caesar is introduced as an introductory text, progress in reading is slow, and the pages seem longwinded and labored. But this is the exact opposite of Caesar's stylistic art, which is direct, short-winded and compressed. In order to convince students of his directness, better methods of learning must be introduced, so students get a basic reading knowledge of Latin quickly, before they can get bogged down by "paralinguistic" explanations and eternal word-searching in the vocabulary. A method of learning Latin as direct as is used in any modern European language, coupled with a fast dictionary search (such as this dictionary), should provide the linguistic know-how necessary for reading Caesar. But this will only work if the teacher will make it clear, by example and iteration, that these pages are terse reports from a general in his tent at the frontier, reporting with the exactitude of a Pershing, an Eisenhower or a Schwarzkopf the military record of that day and that week. Historians of the military will recognize that the best generals have a way of omitting what is not favorable to their image, and Caesar was no exception, since funding for campaigns must be met by the votes of a Senate.
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Plutarch and Suetonius are similar in their depiction of these events, but Dio combines the stories writing that the tribunes arrested the citizens who placed diadems or wreaths on statues of Caesar. He then places the crowd shouting "rex" on the Alban Hill with the tribunes arresting a member of this crowd as well. The plebeian protested that he was unable to speak his mind freely. Caesar then brought the tribunes before the senate and put the matter to a vote, thereafter removing them from office and erasing their names from the records.
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