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45During these same years many tumults had occurred in the city, especially in connection with the elections, so that it was not until the seventh month that Calvinus and Messalla were appointed consuls. 2And not even then would they have been chosen, had not Quintus Pompeius Rufus, though he was the grandson of Sulla and was serving as tribune, been cast into prison by the senate; and the same penalty was voted in the case of the others who had desired to commit some outrage, while the task of proceeding against them was entrusted to Pompey. 3Sometimes the omens had checked the elections by refusing to favour the interreges; above all else the tribunes, by managing affairs in the city so that they instead of the praetors should conduct the games, prevented the remaining magistrates from being chosen. This also was the reason why Rufus was put in jail. 4He later on brought Favonius, the aedile, to the same fate on some trifling charge, in order that he might have a companion in his disgrace. All the tribunes offered various objections, and proposed, among other things, that consular tribunes should replace the consuls, so that more magistrates might be elected, as formerly. 5And when no one would heed them, they declared that in any case Pompey must be chosen dictator. By this pretext they secured a very long delay; for he was out of town, and of those on the spot there was no one who would venture to vote for the demand, since in remembrance of Sulla’s cruelty they all hated that institution, nor yet would venture to refuse to choose Pompey, on account of their fear of him.
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