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17And far from receiving at that time the money which he had promised them, the people had to give him all the rest that remained in the treasury for the support of his soldiers, whom they feared. In honour of all these things, as if they were propitious events, the citizens changed back to the garb of peace, which up to this time they had not resumed. 2Now Lucius Metellus, a tribune, opposed the proposition about the money, and when his efforts proved unavailing, he went to the treasury and kept guard at the doors. But the soldiers, paying little heed to the guard he kept or, I imagine, to his outspokenness either, cut the bolt in two (for the consuls had the key, just as if it were not possible for persons to use axes in place of it!) and carried off all the money. 3In the case of Caesar’s other projects also, as I have often stated, he both brought them to vote and carried them out in the same fashion, under the name of democracy, inasmuch as the majority of them were introduced by Antony, but with the substance of despotism. Both Caesar and Pompey called their opponents enemies of their country and declared that they themselves were fighting for the public interests, whereas each alike was really ruining those interests and advancing merely his own private ends.
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