[807] The question became complicated through the difference of origin of the powers given for each of the two Gauls. The Senate had the power of taking away from Cæsar’s command Ulterior Gaul, which was given to him by a senatus-consultus, but it could not deprive him of Citerior Gaul, given by a plebiscitum, and yet it was the contrary opinion that Cicero sustained in 698. In fact, he exclaimed then, in his Oration on the Consular Provinces: “He separates the part of the province on which there can be no opposition (because it has been given by a senatus-consultus), and does not touch that which can be easily attacked; and, at the same time that he dares not take away that which has been given by the people, he is in haste to take away all, senator as he is, that which has been given by the Senate.” (Cicero, Orat. de Provinc. Consular., 15.—Velleius Paterculus, II. 44.—Suetonius, Cæsar, 20.—Appian, Civil Wars, II. 13.—Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 8.)
[808] The 1st of March was the commencement of the ancient Roman year, the period at which the generals entered into campaign.
[809] P. Servilius, who was consul in 675, took possession of his province a short time after he entered upon his duties as consul; he returned in 679. Cicero (Orat. III. in Verrem, 90) says that he held the command during five years. This number can only be explained by admitting that the years 675 and 679 were reckoned as complete. L. Piso, who was consul in 696, quitted Rome at the end of his consulship, and returned thither in the summer of 699. Now, he was considered as having exercised the command during three years. (Cicero, In Pisonem, 35, 40.) They must, therefore, have counted as one year of the proconsulship the few months of 695. (See Mommsen, The Question of Right between Cæsar and the Senate, p. 28.)
[810] At all times the assemblies have been seen striving to shorten the duration of the powers given by the people to a man whose sympathies were not with them. Here is an example. The Constitution of 1848 decided that the President of the French Republic should be named for four years. The Prince Louis Napoleon was elected on the 10th of December, 1848, and proclaimed on the 20th of the same month. His powers ought to have ended on the 20th of December, 1852. Now, the Constituent Assembly, which foresaw the election of Prince Louis Napoleon, fixed the termination of the presidency to the second Sunday of the Month of May, 1852, thus robbing him of seven months.
[811] De Bello Gallico, VIII. 39.
[812] Dio Cassius, XL. 59.
[813] Appian, Civil Wars, II. 4.
[814] “Quid ergo? exercitum retinentis, quum legis dies transierit, rationem haberi placet? Mihi vero ne absentis quidem.” (Epist. ad Atticum, VII. 7.)
[815] Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, VII. 9.
[816] “Absenti sibi, quandocumque imperii tempus expleri cœpisset.” (Suetonius, Cæsar, 26.—Cicero, Epist. Famil., XIII. 11.)