418 CATO THE YOUNGER. on the people to pay their honors to him, as for himself he had placed his whole authority in Cato's hands. At the same time, Curio, the colleague of Favonius, gave very magnificent entertainments in another theatre ; but the people left his, and went to those of Favonius, which they much applauded, and joined heartily in the diversion, seeing him act the private man, and Cato the master of the shows, who, in fact, did all this in derision of the great expenses that others incurred, and to teach them, that in amusements men ought to seek amusement only, and the display of a decent cheerfulness, not great prep- arations and costly magnificence, demanding the expendi- ture of endless care and trouble about things of little concern. After this Scipio, Hypsams, and Milo, stood to be con- suls, and that not only with the usual and now recog- nized disorders of bribery and corruption, but with arms and slaughter, and every appearance of carrying their audacity and desperation to the length of actual civil war. Whereupon it was proposed, that Pompey might be em- powered to preside over that election. This Cato at first opposed, saying that the laws ought not to seek protec- tion from Pompey, but Pompey from the laws. Yet the confusion lasting a long time, the forum continually, as it were, besieged with three armies, and no possibility appearing of a stop being put to these disorders, Cato at length agreed, that rather than fall into the last extrem- ity, the senate should freely confer all on Pompey ; since it was necessary to make use of a lesser illegality as a remedy against the greatest of all, and better to set up a monarchy themselves, than to suffer a sedition to con- tinue, that must certainly end in one. Bibulus, therefore, a friend of Cato's, moved the senate to create Pompey sole consul ; for that either he would reestablish the law- ful government, or they should serve under the best mas-
