Lintott argues that the solution to violence in 52 BC left control of the city in one group under Pompeius and consequently, any dispute between Pompeius, Caesar and the optimates (Senate) without constitutional compromise would elevate the violence immediately into civil war. The solution of 52 BC where constitutional mos had been stretched to achieve a political solution to demagoguery and urban violence. Lintott writes:

Though urban violence had been suppressed, the feelings associated with it lived on. The optimates, finding that they could not use legal means to control a man they considered the enemy of the republic, decided automatically for force. They could not see clearly enough the dangers of a new civil war, which, though it was not founded on the personally bitterness that characterized the previous one, was to spell the end of republican government.

For Caesar the concept of the republic involved his right to maintain his dignitas, especially his position of patronage over his troops, by any constitutional means possible. When these were of no avail, violence had always been the way for a Roman to right undeserved wrongs.

As Lintott notes, if Caesar had returned as a private citizen he most likely would have faced a political prosecution which Caesar feared would take the form of a biased court and his being surrounded by armed men.