Effeminacy was a favorite accusation in Roman political invective, and was aimed particularly at "populares", the politicians of the faction who represented themselves as champions of the people, sometimes called Rome's "democratic" party in contrast to the "optimates", a conservative elite of nobles. In the last years of the Republic, the popularists Julius Caesar, Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony), and Clodius Pulcher, as well as the Catilinarian conspirators, were all derided as effeminate, overly-groomed, too-good-looking men who might be on the receiving end of sex from other males; at the same time, they were supposed to be womanizers or possessed of devastating sex appeal.