Editing First Triumvirate (section)

==== Popular opinion turns ====
By the summer, however, popular opinion had started to turn against Caesar's methods.{{sfn|Morstein-Marx|2021|p=148}} Pompey also was distancing himself from Caesar.{{sfn|Wiseman|1992|p=374}} This was in part due to the success to Cato and Bibulus' campaign: Bibulus' choice to confine himself to his home "presented the image of the city dominated by one man's sole power, unchecked by a colleague".{{sfn|Morstein-Marx|2021|p=151}} Pompey and Caesar attempted public protests against Bibulus' edicts and seclusion, respectively, to little response from the people. By then, the popular fervour of the agrarian bills had died down and the public likely desired a return to normal politics.{{sfn|Morstein-Marx|2021|p=152}}

The ancient sources claimed that for most of the year, the senate was not called and that the people and senators were intimidated and cowed into passing whatever the three allies put before them.{{sfn|Morstein-Marx|2021|p=155}} These claims are incompatible with the attested events of that year.<ref>{{harvnb|Morstein-Marx|2021|pp=155–63}}, explaining:
* While Cato may have boycotted, there was no indication that Cicero or other moderates did so. While Cicero wrote some letters from this country estates, those were over the normal April break.
* Dio claims that Caesar and his allies could get anything they wanted before a cowed senate, but reports of full and rowdy meetings in which senators were willing to insult Caesar to his face – Suet. ''Iul.'' 22.1 – trend against those claims.
* The [[Vettius affair]] – where an informer accused various conservatives of plotting to murder Pompey – that summer took place before a full senate that was not wholly under Caesar's control; no trials against those named occurred.
* There are no indications in Cicero's later letters implying that Caesar or Pompey used force to intimidate political opponents in 59.</ref> For example, in that year, Caesar's ally Vatinius was defeated in an election to the augurate{{sfn|Morstein-Marx|2021|p=160}} and later elections for the magistracies returned [[Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (consul 54 BC)|Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus]] and [[Gaius Memmius (poet)|Gaius Memmius]], both opponents of Pompey and Caesar, as praetors.{{sfn|Morstein-Marx|2021|pp=165–66}} He was also able to secure election of two allies – one was Caesar's soon-to-be father-in-law ([[Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus (consul 58 BC)|Lucius Calpurnius Piso]]) and the other was Pompey's supporter [[Aulus Gabinius]] – to the consulship.{{sfn|Morstein-Marx|2021|p=165}} Also passed during Caesar's consulship was the [[Lex Iulia de Repetundis|''lex Julia de repetundis'']], which was a wide-ranging reform on corruption in the provinces and before the republic's permanent courts.{{sfn|Morstein-Marx|2021|pp=166–67}}