But it was all a vain hurly-burly, as to which Caesar, when he heard the details in Gaul, could only have felt how little was to be gained by maintaining his alliance with Pompey.

He had achieved his purpose, which he could not have done without the assistance of Crassus, whose wealth, and of Pompey, whose authority, stood highest in Rome; and now, having had his legions voted to him, and his provinces, and his prolonged term of years, he cared nothing for either of them.
There is a little story which must be repeated, as against Cicero, in reference to this period of his exile, because it has been told in all records of his life.

Were I to omit the little story, it would seem as though I shunned the records which have been repeated as opposed to his credit.

He had written, some time back, a squib in which he had been severe upon the elder Curio; so it is supposed; but it matters little who was the object or what the subject.

This had got wind in Rome, as such matters do sometimes, and he now feared that it would do him a mischief with the Curios and the friends of the Curios.