him: a coalition of the Claudii, including Clodius, the Lentuli, and the Catonians – with little meaningful opposition from Caesar and Crassus – were able to shut off any hope of Pompey being granted a new military command in Egypt to restore Ptolemy XII Auletes to the throne. In a clash of mutually exclusive proposals raised by different factions in January 56 BC, all proposals were unacceptable to at least one party, leading to nothing being done about Egypt. At the same time, Pompey's grain command had not produced reduced prices, further reducing his popularity; under attack by Clodius, whom Pompey suspected Crassus was supporting, the conservatives around Bibulus and Curio watched. All the consuls of 57 and 56 BC were, if not opponents of, indifferent to both Caesar and Pompey; the failure to maintain their political influence put the alliance into a "shambles". Cicero, describing Pompey's plight, mentions the contio-goers estranged, the nobility hostile, and the senate unfair. Without the ability to make allies with the rest of the aristocracy, who had closed ranks against him, Pompey had to double down with his existing allies. In Gaul Through this whole period, Caesar was fighting in the Gallic Wars. By early 56 BC, he had won enormous popularity both with the senate and the people: in 57, Caesar requested thanksgivings for his victory over the Belgae and, at a motion of Cicero, received fifteen days of supplicationes, a new record. In his narrative of his campaign, Commentarii de Bello Gallico, by 57, Caesar reported pacification of the whole region. These military achievements had undercut any political will to undermine Caesar's acta from his first consulship, and during 56 itself, Caesar received a series of favourable senatorial decrees to provide more funds for his troops in Gaul – above Cicero's objections that Caesar could have paid for them out of his spoils – and granted his request to have ten legates () sent to aid in administration and senatorial settlement of the region's affairs. Caesar's successes at this point had made him extremely popular among the people and in general across the political class; Cicero, who had been sullen during Caesar's consulship, sang his praises, saying "If perhaps Gaius Caesar was too contentious in any matter, if the greatness of the struggle, his zeal for glory, if his irrepressible spirit and high nobility drove him on [that] should be tolerated in