Greatly troubled by these measures, and thinking, as they say he was often heard to remark, that now that he was the leading man of the state, it was harder to push him down from the first place to the second than it would be from the second to the lowest, Caesar stoutly resisted Marcellus, partly through vetoes of the tribunes and partly through the other consul, Servius Sulpicius. When next year Gaius Marcellus, who had succeeded his cousin Marcus as consul, tried the same thing, Caesar by a heavy bribe secured the support of the other consul, Aemilius Paulus, and of Gaius Curio, the most reckless of the tribunes.
Commotus his Caesar ac iudicans, quod saepe ex eo auditum ferunt, difficilius se principem civitatis a primo ordine in secundum quam ex secundo in novissimum detrudi, summa ope restitit, partim per intercessores tribunos, partim per Servium Sulpicium alterum consulem. Insequenti quoque anno Gaio Marcello, qui fratri patrueli suo Marco in consulatu successerat, eadem temptante collegam eius Aemilium Paulum Gaiumque Curionem violentissimum tribunorum ingenti mercede defensores paravit.
But seeing that everything was being pushed most persistently, and that even the consuls elect were among the opposition, he sent a written appeal to the senate, not to take from him the privilege which the people had granted, or else to compel the others in command of armies to resign also; feeling sure, it was thought, that he could more readily muster his veterans as soon as he wished, than Pompey his newly levied troops. He further proposed a compromise to his opponents, that after giving up eight legions and Transalpine Gaul, he be allowed to keep two legions and Cisalpine Gaul, or at least one legion and Illyricum, until he was elected consul.
Sed cum obstinatius omnia agi videret et designatos etiam consules e parte diversa, senatum litteris deprecatus est, ne sibi beneficium populi adimeretur, aut ut ceteri quoque imperatores ab exercitibus discederent; confisus, ut putant, facilius se, simul atque libuisset, veteranos convocaturum quam Pompeium novos milites. Cum adversariis autem pepigit, ut dimissis octo legionibus Transalpinaque Gallia duae sibi legiones et Cisalpina provincia vel etiam una legio cum Illyrico concederetur, quoad consul fieret.