49 Yet, at the same
time, neither by interest, nor by solicitation, nor by bribes, could Quintus
Catulus, and Caius Piso, prevail upon Cicero to have Caius Caesar falsely
accused, either by means of the Allobroges, or any other evidence. Both of
these men were at bitter enmity with Caesar; Piso, as having been attacked by
him, when he was on his trial for extortion, on a charge of having illegally
put to death a Transpadane Gaul; Catulus, as having hated him ever since he
stood for the pontificate, because, at an advanced age, and after filling the
highest offices, he had been defeated by Caesar, who was then comparatively a
youth. The opportunity, too, seemed favorable for such an accusation; for
Caesar, by extraordinary generosity in private, and by magnificent exhibitions
in public, had fallen greatly into debt. But when they failed to persuade the
consul to such injustice, they themselves, by going from one person to another,
and spreading fictions of their own, which they pretended to have heard from
Volturcius or the Allobroges, excited such violent odium against him, that
certain Roman knights, who were stationed as an armed guard round the Temple of
Concord, being prompted, either by the greatness of the danger, or by the
impulse of a high spirit, to testify more openly their zeal for the republic,
threatened Caesar with their swords as he went out of the senate-house.
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