Но Гортензий и Красс - тема отдельная. У них были какие-то собственные отношения, никак не подпадающие под сенатский расклад - оптимат Гортензий вполне себе проворачивал некоторые делишки в полной любви и согласии с товарищем триумвиром.
По-моему, такие необычные на первый взгляд союзы были в Риме обыденным явлением. В то время преследовали скорее свои личные интересы, нежели интересы какой-то партии. Весьма характерны все эти метания и шатания Цицерона (имею в виду частую перемену взглядов), а при внимательном взгляде на тогдашнюю политическую ситуацию замечаешь, что и другие действовали ему под стать. Ср. что об этом пишет У.К. Лейси:
Metellus Nepos belongs on all the prosopographers' criteria to the heart
of Sulla's, and hence of the 'optimate', party; he was a tribune who
entered office on io December 63 B.C., attacking Cicero for suppressing
Catiline, hence was a popularis on this occasion;I in less than five
years, in 58, he was in the heart of the aristocracy, 'the Senate', or the
'optimate', party, as it is usually called, resisting Caesar and Crassus.
C. Scribonius Curio was a popularis, supporter of Clodius in 6I B.C.,
whose father was the target of Cicero's furious tirade in Clodium et
Curionem, but not three years later was the last to capitulate to the
factio of Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar in 59-hence was a leader of 'the
Senate' so-called.
Or let us take the prime turncoat of all, Cn. Pompeius Magnus. He
turned up to fight for Cinna, hence was popularis, in 84, but changed his
mind and fought for Sulla in 83, the next year. He backed M. Aemilius
Lepidus for the consulship of 78 (the election was in 79 of course),
defying Sulla, hence popularis, but changed to back Sulla's supporters
who controlled the Senate in early 77, when a job was offered him,
hence became an 'optimate' again. He quarrelled with the Senate while
in Spain, became popularis again, thereby obtaining the consulate in 70,
and subsequently obtaining commands under the lex Gabinia in 67 and
lex Manilia in 66 from tribunes in the teeth of 'Senatorial' opposition.
He remained out of Rome till 62, when, after his dramatic demobilization
of his troops at Brundisium, he tried reconciliation. He was rebuffed.
As the leading figure of the misnamed first triumvirate he was
leader of the popularis party from 60, but in 58 he was being opposed,
and claimed to fear that he might be assassinated, by Clodius, who
certainly claimed to be one of the populares, a state of affairs repeated
in the winter of 57/6, when Pompey was given the job of corncommissioner
by the Senate. Was Pompey popularis or 'optimate', in
this period? It is hard to say. (W. K. Lacey, 'Boni Atque Improbi', Greece & Rome, Second Series, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Apr., 1970), p. 5.
Или Бенарио:
One of the greatest advances in the study of Roman history in this century is in the workings of Roman politics. Thanks to the labors of Gelzer, Friedrich Munzer, and Syme, above all, it is now clear that there were no such things as parties which offered coherent programs. Politics were based upon personal alliances, with intermarriage and adoption often crucial in the enlargement of one's clientela and the consolidation of one's position. Herbert W. Benario, The Classical Journal, Vol. 69, No. 1 (Oct. - Nov., 1973), p.13