In 50 BC he was elected consul for the following year alongside G. Claudius Marcellus, as opponents to Caesar, and was an active and vocal participant in the increasingly hysterical scenes in the senate in late 50 and January 49 as Caesar sought to secure a safe consulship whilst a reactionary group of senators sought to have him stripped of command. Finally, on 7 January 49 BC, the senate under Lentulus and Marcellus passed the “final decree” (senatus consultum ultimum); the tribunes Mark Antony and Quintus Cassius fled with Caesar's envoy, the younger Curio, from Rome to meet Caesar at Ravenna. On the 10th, Caesar famously crossed the Rubicon, starting the Civil War.