Heraklia, you are definitely onto something here! If only we had been flies on the Senate's walls during that debate!

Detractors of Pompey will immediately ask, "On whom's behalf was Claudius acting?" Pompey comes forward as the logical answer. Isn't this event true to Pompey's customary posturing, where he waits in the wings, listening for his cue and then comes to center stage ushered into action by authorities presumably bowing to the will of the people. Except in this case the political theater omits that important detail; Claudius has not won the backing of the Senate nor is he responding to popular clamor. He simply wants Caesar done in once and for all and new provincial assignments made quickly.

I do want to get references to this debate out so I can re-read them. But isn't this time surrounding the debate filled with proposals and counter-proposals? There was one suggestion, I believe, that would have divided Caesar's provinces thus requiring a new governor of Illyricum and another of Gaul; another proposal would have allowed Caesar one province while the other two would have been re-assigned. All the while some of Rome's leading men would have had their eye on the profits from governing provinces and the glory from commanding legions. Who do we hear smacking their lips at the prospect?

Claudius, it seems to me, is simply playing the identical game that Caesar and Pompey were playing. He is, at the very least, kibbutzing. The greedy men wished all of these long secured provinces to be freed from the grips of Caesar and Pompey so the wealth could be spread around a bit. The length of these commands now threatened to turn the provinces into personal empires, one for Caesar, the other for Pompey. The difference, frankly, is that Caesar treated Gaul, at least, as his own. Pompey had assumed a somewhat aloof position with regard to Spain, choosing to govern from afar, and probably estimating that Spain was his by right of previous service against Sertorious and now by extended governance.

And so it seems to me that Claudius was acting on Pompey's behalf as much as on his own. As Cicero tells Caelius, there is a war party of men who know how to profit from war. Those war mongers could be found on both Caesar's and Pompey's sides, and from the sources we see only those allied with Pompey in action. But not for a minute do I think that Mark Antony or Balbus or Curio were not promoting war before Caesar crossed the Rubicon. And we must also take into consideration that Caesar's supporters were less likely to be quoted in the sources we have because they were all lesser men. Roman historians quote the great figures and ignore the striving ones, the very up-and-comers who had long before gone over to Caesar and who were later to profit handsomely from the arrangements of Augustus.

What is additionally significant is the rumor of Caesar's march against Rome. In other words, the possibility of Caesar imitating Sulla was already current and under discussion. Caesar's opponents were alert to his strength and the choices available to him from a position of power, however ill-prepared they were to respond.

In my analysis, Heraklia, suggesting that Claudius "started" the war that ended the Republic is similar to saying that Curio stared it. Curio and Claudius were acting in the Senate on behalf of Caesar and Pompey. The warlords, Caesar and Pompey, bear equal responsibility, just as Marius and then Cinna share responsibility with Sulla for the previous war.