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                                      75 AD
                                     POMPEY
                                  106-48 B.C.
                                  by Plutarch
                           translated by John Dryden
POMPEY

  THE people of Rome seem to have entertained for Pompey from his
childhood the same affection that Prometheus, in the tragedy of
Aeschylus, expresses for Hercules, speaking of him as the author of
his deliverance, in these words:-

         "Ah cruel Sire! how dear thy son to me!
          The generous offspring of my enemy!"

For on the one hand, never did the Romans give such demonstrations
of a vehement and fierce hatred against any of their generals as
they did against Strabo, the father of Pompey; during whose
lifetime, it is true, they stood in awe of his military power, as
indeed he was a formidable warrior, but immediately upon his death,
which happened by a stroke of thunder, they treated him with the
utmost contumely, dragging his corpse from the bier, as it was carried
to his funeral. On the other side, never had any Roman the people's
good-will and devotion more zealous throughout all the changes of
fortune, more early in its first springing up, or more steadily rising
with his prosperity, or more constant in his adversity than Pompey
had. In Strabo, there was one great cause of their hatred, his
insatiable covetousness; in Pompey, there were many that helped to
make him the object of their love; his temperance, his skill and
exercise in war, his eloquence of speech, integrity of mind, and
affability in conversation and address; insomuch that no man ever
asked a favour with less offence, or conferred one with a better
grace. When he gave, it was without assumption; when he received, it
was with dignity and honour.
  In his youth, his countenance pleaded for him, seeming to anticipate
his eloquence, and win upon the affections of the people before he
spoke. His beauty even in his bloom of youth had something in it at
once of gentleness and dignity; and when his prime of manhood came,
the majesty and kingliness of his character at once became visible
in it. His hair sat somewhat hollow or rising a little; and this, with
the languishing motion of his eyes, seemed to form a resemblance in
his face, though perhaps more talked of than really apparent, to the
statues of the King Alexander. And because many applied that name to
him in his youth, Pompey himself did not decline it, insomuch that
some called him so in derision. And Lucius Philippus, a man of
consular dignity, when he was pleading in favour of him, thought it
not unfit to say, that people could not be surprised if Philip was a
lover of Alexander.
  It is related of Flora, the courtesan, that when she was now
pretty old, she took great delight in speaking of her early
familiarity with Pompey, and was wont to say that she could never part
after being with him without a bite. She would further tell, that
Geminius, a companion of Pompey's, fell in love with her, and made his
court with great importunity; and on her refusing, and telling him,
however her inclinations were, yet she could not gratify his desires
for Pompey's sake, he therefore made his request to Pompey, and Pompey
frankly gave his consent, but never afterwards would have any converse
with her, notwithstanding that he seemed to have a great passion for
her; and Flora, on this occasion, showed none of the levity that might
have been expected of her, but languished for some time after under
a sickness brought on by grief and desire. This Flora, we are told,
was such a celebrated beauty, that Caecilius Metellus, when he adorned
the temple of Castor and Pollux with paintings and statues, among
the rest dedicated hers for her singular beauty. In his conduct also
to the wife of Demetrius, his freed servant (who had great influence
with him in his lifetime, and left an estate of four thousand
talents), Pompey acted contrary to his usual habits, not quite
fairly or generously, fearing lest he should fall under the common
censure of being enamoured and charmed with her beauty, which was
irresistible, and became famous everywhere. Nevertheless, though he
seemed to be so extremely circumspect and cautious, yet even in
matters of this nature he could not avoid the calumnies of his
enemies, but upon the score of married women, they accused him, as
if he had connived at many things, and embezzled the public revenue to
gratify their luxury.
  Of his easiness of temper and plainness, in what related to eating
and drinking, the story is told that, once in a sickness, when his
stomach nauseated common meats, his physician prescribed him a
thrush to eat; but upon search, there was none to be bought, for
they were not then in season, and one telling him they were to be
had at Lucullus's, who kept them all the year round, "So then," said
he, "if it were not for Lucullus's luxury, Pompey should not live;"
and thereupon, not minding the prescription of the physician, he
contented himself with such meat as could easily be procured. But this
was at a later time.
  Being as yet a very young man, and upon an expedition in which his
father was commanding against Cinna, he had in his tent with him one
Lucius Terentius, as his companion and comrade, who, being corrupted
by Cinna, entered into an engagement to kill Pompey, as others had
done to set the general's tent on fire. This conspiracy being
discovered to Pompey at supper, he showed no discomposure at it, but
on the contrary drank more liberally than usual, and expressed great
kindness to Terentius; but about bedtime, pretending to go to his
repose, he stole away secretly out of the tent, and setting a guard
about his father, quietly expected the event. Terentius, when he
thought the proper time come, rose with his naked sword, and coming to
Pompey's bedside stabbed several strokes through the bedclothes, as if
he were lying there. Immediately after this there was a great uproar
throughout all the camp, arising from the hatred they bore to the
general, and an universal movement of the soldiers to revolt, all
tearing down their tents and betaking themselves to their arms. The
general himself all this while durst not venture out because of the
tumult; but Pompey, going about in the midst of them, besought them
with tears; and at last threw himself prostrate upon his face before
the gate of the camp, and lay there in the passage at their feet
shedding tears, and bidding those that were marching off, if they
would go, trample upon him. Upon which, none could help going back
again, and all, except eight hundred, either through shame or
compassion, repented, and were reconciled to the general.
  Immediately upon the death of Strabo, there was an action
commenced against Pompey, as his heir, for that his father had
embezzled the public treasure. But Pompey, having traced the principal
thefts, charged them upon one Alexander, a freed slave of his
father's, and proved before the judges that he had been the
appropriator. But he himself was accused of having in his possession
some hunting tackle, and books, that were taken at Asculum. To this he
confessed thus far, that he received them from his father when he took
Asculum, but pleaded further, that he had lost them since, upon
Cinna's return to Rome, when his house was broken open and plundered
by Cinna's guards. In this cause he had a great many preparatory
pleadings against his accuser, in which he showed in activity and
steadfastness beyond his years, and gained great reputation and
favour, insomuch that Antistius, the praetor and judge of the cause,
took a great liking to him, and offered him his daughter in
marriage, having had some communications with his friends about it.
Pompey accepted the proposal, and they were privately contracted;
however, the secret was not so closely kept as to escape the
multitude, but it was discernible enough, from the favour shown him by
Antistius in his cause. And at last, when Antistius pronounced the
absolutory sentence of the judges, the people, as if it had been
upon a signal given, made the acclamation used according to ancient
custom at marriages, Talasio. The origin of which custom is related to
be this. At the time when the daughters of the Sabines came to Rome,
to see the shows and sports there, and were violently seized upon by
the most distinguished and bravest of the Romans for wives, it
happened that some goatswains and herdsmen of the meaner rank were
carrying off a beautiful and tall maiden; and lest any of their
betters should meet them, and take her away, as they ran, they cried
out with one voice, Talasio, Talasius being a well-known and popular
person among them, insomuch that all that heard the name clapped their
hands for joy, and joined with them in the shout, as applauding and
congratulating the chance. Now, say they, because this proved a
fortunate match to Talasius, hence it is that this acclamation is
sportively used as a nuptial cry at all weddings. This is the most
credible of the accounts that are given of the Talasio. And some few
days after this judgment, Pompey married Antistia.
  After this he went to Cinna's camp, where, finding some false
suggestions and calumnies prevailing against him, he began to be
afraid, and presently withdrew himself secretly which sudden
disappearance occasioned great suspicion. And there went a rumour
and speech through all the camp that Cinna had murdered the young man;
upon which all that had been anyways disobliged, and bore any malice
to him, resolved to make an assault upon him. He, endeavouring to make
his escape, was seized by a centurion, who pursued him with his
naked sword. Cinna, in this distress, fell upon his knees, and offered
him his seal-ring, of great value, for his ransom; but the centurion
repulsed him insolently, saying, "I did not come to seal a covenant,
but to be revenged upon a lawless and wicked tyrant;" and so
despatched him immediately.
  Thus Cinna being slain, Carbo, a tyrant yet more senseless than
he, took the command and exercised it, while Sylla meantime was
approaching, much to the joy and satisfaction of most people, who in
their present evils were ready to find some comfort if it were but
in the exchange of a master. For the city was brought to that pass
by oppression and calamities that, being utterly in despair of
liberty, men were only anxious for the mildest and most tolerable
bondage. At that time Pompey was in Picenum in Italy, where he spent
some time amusing himself, as he had estates in the country there,
though the chief motive of his stay was the liking he felt for the
towns of that district, which all regarded him with hereditary
feelings of kindness and attachment. But when he now saw that the
noblest and best of the city began to forsake their homes and
property, and fly from all quarters to Sylla's camp, as to their
haven, he likewise was desirous to go; not, however, as a fugitive,
alone and with nothing to offer, but as a friend rather than a
suppliant, in a way that would gain him honour, bringing help along
with him, and at the head of a body of troops. Accordingly he
solicited the Picentines for their assistance, who as cordially
embraced his motion, and rejected the messengers sent from Carbo;
insomuch that a certain Vindius taking upon him to say that Pompey was
come from the school-room to put himself at the head of the people,
they were so incensed that they fell forthwith upon this Vindius and
killed him.
  From henceforward Pompey, finding a spirit of government upon him,
though not above twenty-three years of age, nor deriving an
authority by commission from any man, took the privilege to grant
himself full power, and, causing a tribunal to be erected in the
market-place of Auximum, a populous city, expelled two of their
principal men, brothers, of the name of Ventidius, who were acting
against him in Carbo's interest, commanding them by a public edict
to depart the city; and then proceeding to levy soldiers, issuing
out commissions to centurions and other officers, according to the
form of military discipline. And in this manner he went round all
the rest of the cities in the district. So that those of Carbo's
faction flying, and all others cheerfully submitting to his command,
in a little time he mustered three entire legions, having supplied
himself besides with all manner of provisions, beasts of burden,
carriages, and other necessaries of war. And with this equipage he set
forward on his march toward Sylla, not as if he were in haste, or
desirous of escaping observation, but by small journeys, making
several halts upon the road, to distress and annoy the enemy, and
exerting himself to detach from Carbo's interest every part of Italy
that he passed through.
  Three commanders of the enemy encountered him at once, Carinna,
Cloelius, and Brutus, and drew up their forces, not all in the
front, nor yet together on any one part, but encamping three several
armies in a circle about him, they resolved to encompass and overpower
him. Pompey was noway alarmed at this, but collecting all his troops
into one body, and placing his horse in the front of the battle, where
he himself was in person, he singled out and bent all his forces
against Brutus, and when the Celtic horsemen from the enemy's side
rode out to meet him, Pompey himself encountering hand to hand with
the foremost and stoutest among them, killed him with his spear. The
rest seeing this turned their backs and fled, and breaking the ranks
of their own foot, presently caused a general rout; whereupon the
commanders fell out among themselves, and marched off, some one way,
some another, as their fortunes led them, and the town; round about
came in and surrendered themselves to Pompey, concluding that the
enemy was dispersed for fear. Next after these, Scipio, the consul,
came to attack him, and with as little success; for before the
armies could join, or be within the throw of their javelins,
Scipio's soldiers saluted Pompey's, and came over to them, while
Scipio made his escape by flight. Last of all, Carbo himself sent down
several troops of horse against him by the river Arsis, which Pompey
assailed with the same courage and success as before; and having
routed and put them to flight, he forced them in the pursuit into
difficult ground, unpassable for horse, where, seeing no hopes of
escape, they yielded themselves with their horses and armour, all to
his mercy.
  Sylla was hitherto unacquainted with all these actions; and on the
first intelligence he received of his movements was in great anxiety
about him, fearing lest he should be cut off among so many and such
experienced commanders of the enemy, and marched therefore with all
speed to his aid. Now Pompey, having advice of his approach, sent
out orders to his officers to marshal and draw up all his forces in
full array, that they might make the finest and noblest appearance
before the commander-in-chief; for he expected indeed great honours
from him, but met with even greater. For as soon as Sylla saw him thus
advancing, his army so well appointed, his men so young and strong,
and their spirits so high and hopeful with their successes, he
alighted from his horse, and being first, as was his due, saluted by
them with the title of Imperator, he returned the salutation upon
Pompey, in the same term and style of Imperator, which might well
cause surprise, as none could have ever anticipated that he would have
imparted, to one so young in years and not yet a senator, a title
which was the object of contention between him and the Scipios and
Marii. And indeed all the rest of his deportment was agreeable to this
first compliment; whenever Pompey came into his presence, he paid some
sort of respect to him, either in rising and being uncovered, or the
like, which he was rarely seen to do with any one else,
notwithstanding that there were many about him of great rank and
honour. Yet Pompey was not puffed up at all, or exalted with these
favours. And when Sylla would have sent him with all expedition into
Gaul, a province in which it was thought Metellus, who commanded in
it, had done nothing worthy of the large forces at his disposal,
Pompey urged that it could not be fair or honourable for him to take a
province out of the hands of his senior in command and his superior in
reputation; however, if Metellus were willing, and should request
his service, he should be very ready to accompany and assist him in
the war, which when Metellus came to understand, he approved of the
proposal, and invited him over by letter. On this Pompey fell
immediately into Gaul, where he not only achieved wonderful exploits
of himself, but also fired up and kindled again that bold and
warlike spirit, which old age had in a manner extinguished in
Metellus, into a new heat; just as molten copper, they say, when
poured upon that which is cold and solid, will dissolve and melt it
faster than fire itself. But as when a famous wrestler has gained
the first place among men, and borne away the prizes at all the games,
it is not usual to take account of his victories as a boy, or to enter
them upon record among the rest; so with the exploits of Pompey in his
youth, though they were extraordinary in themselves, yet because
they were obscured and buried in the multitude and greatness of his
later wars and conquests, I dare not be particular in them, lest, by
trifling away time in the lesser moments of his youth, we should be
driven to omit those greater actions and fortunes which best
illustrate his character.
  Now, when Sylla had brought all Italy under his dominion, and was
proclaimed dictator, he began to reward the rest of his followers,
by giving them wealth, appointing them to offices in the state, and
granting them freely and without restriction any favours they asked
for. But as for Pompey, admiring his valour and conduct, and
thinking that he might prove a great stay and support to him hereafter
in his affairs, he sought means to attach him to himself by some
personal alliance, and his wife Metella joining in his wishes, they
two persuaded Pompey to put away Antistia, and marry Aemilia, the
step-daughter of Sylla, born by Metella to Scaurus, her former
husband, she being at that very time the wife of another man, living
with him, and with child by him. These were the very tyrannies of
marriage, and much more agreeable to the times under Sylla than to the
nature and habits of Pompey; that Aemilia great with child should
be, as it were, ravished from the embraces of another for him, and
that Antistia should be divorced with dishonour and misery by him, for
whose sake she had been but just before bereft of her father. For
Antistius was murdered in the senate, because he was suspected to be a
favourer of Sylla for Pompey's sake; and her mother, likewise, after
she had seen all these indignities, made away with herself, a new
calamity to be added to the tragic accompaniments of this marriage,
and that there might be nothing wanting to complete them, Aemilia
herself died, almost immediately after entering Pompey's house, in
childbed.
  About this time news came to Sylla that Perpenna was fortifying
himself in Sicily, that the island was now become a refuge and
receptacle for the relics of the adverse party, that Carbo was
hovering about those seas with a navy, that Domitius had fallen in
upon Africa, and that many of the exiled men of note who had escaped
from the proscriptions were daily flocking into those parts. Against
these, therefore, Pompey was sent with a large force; and no sooner
was he arrived in Sicily, but Perpenna immediately departed, leaving
the whole island to him. Pompey received the distressed cities into
favour, and treated all with great humanity, except the Mamertines
in Messena; for when they protested against his court and
jurisdiction, alleging their privilege and exemption founded upon an
ancient charter or grant of the Romans, he replied sharply, "What!
will you never cease prating of laws to us that have swords by our
sides?" It was thought, likewise, that he showed some inhumanity to
Carbo, seeming rather to insult over his misfortunes than to
chastise his crimes. For if there had been a necessity, as perhaps
there was, that he should be taken off, that might have been done at
first, as soon as he was taken prisoner, for then it would have been
the act of him that commanded it. But here Pompey commanded a man that
had been thrice consul of Rome to be brought in fetters to stand at
the bar, he himself sitting upon the bench in judgment, examining
the cause with the formalities of law, to the offence and
indignation of all that were present, and afterwards ordered him to be
taken away and put to death. It is related, by the way, of Carbo, that
as soon as he was brought to the place, and saw the sword drawn for
execution, he was suddenly seized with a looseness or pain in his
bowels, and desired a little respite of the executioner, and a
convenient place to relieve himself. And yet further, Caius Oppius,
the friend of Caesar, tells us, that Pompey dealt cruelly with Quintus
Valerius, a man of singular learning and science. For when he was
brought to him, he walked aside, and drew him into conversation, and
after putting a variety of questions to him, and receiving answers
from him, he ordered his officers to take him away and put him to
death. But we must not be too credulous in the case of narratives told
by Oppius, especially when he undertakes to relate anything touching
the friends or foes of Caesar. This is certain, that there lay a
necessity upon Pompey to be severe upon many of Sylla's enemies, those
at least that were eminent persons in themselves, and notoriously
known to be taken; but for the rest, he acted with all the clemency
possible for him, conniving at the concealment of some, and himself
being the instrument in the escape of others. So in the case of the
Himeraeans; for when Pompey had determined on severely punishing their
city, as they had been abettors of the enemy, Sthenis, the leader of
the people there, craving liberty of speech, told him that what he was
about to do was not at all consistent with justice, for that he
would pass by the guilty and destroy the innocent; and on Pompey
demanding who that guilty person was that would assume the offences of
them all, Sthenis replied it was himself, who had engaged his
friends by persuasion to what they had done, and his enemies by force;
whereupon Pompey, being much taken with the frank speech and noble
spirit of the man, first forgave his crime, and then pardoned all
the rest of the Himeraeans. Hearing, likewise, that his soldiers
were very disorderly in their march, doing violence upon the roads, he
ordered their swords to be sealed up in their scabbards, and whosoever
kept them not so were severely punished.
  Whilst Pompey was thus busy in the affairs and government of Sicily,
he received a decree of the senate, and a commission from Sylla,
commanding him forthwith to sail into Africa, and make war upon
Domitius with all his forces: for Domitius had rallied up a far
greater army than Marius had had not long since, when he sailed out of
Africa into Italy, and caused a revolution in Rome, and himself, of
a fugitive outlaw, became a tyrant. Pompey, therefore, having prepared
everything with the utmost speed, left Memmius, his sister's
husband, governor of Sicily, and set sail with one hundred and
twenty galleys, and eight hundred other vessels laden with provisions,
money, ammunition, and engines of battery. He arrived with his
fleet, part at the port of Utica, part at Carthage; and no sooner
was he landed, but seven thousand of the enemy revolted and came
over to him, while his own forces that he brought with him consisted
of six entire legions. Here they tell us of a pleasant incident that
happened to him at his first arrival.
  Some of his soldiers having by accident stumbled upon a treasure, by
which they got a good sum of money, the rest of the army hearing this,
began to fancy that the field was full of gold and silver, which had
been hid there of old by the Carthaginians in the time of their
calamities, and thereupon fell to work, so that the army was useless
to Pompey for many days, being totally engaged in digging for the
fancied treasure, he himself all the while walking up and down only,
and laughing to see so many thousands together, digging and turning up
the earth. Until at last, growing weary and hopeless, they came to
themselves and returned to their general, begging him to lead them
where he pleased, for that they had already received the punishment of
their folly.
  By this time Domitius had prepared himself and drawn out his army in
array against Pompey; but there was a watercourse betwixt them,
craggy, and difficult to pass over; and this, together with a great
storm of wind and rain pouring down even from break of day, seemed
to leave but little possibility of their coming together; so that
Domitius, not expecting any engagement that day, commanded his
forces to draw off and retire to the camp. Now Pompey, who was
watchful upon every occasion, making use of the opportunity, ordered a
march forthwith, and having passed over the torrent, fell in
immediately upon their quarters. The enemy was in great disorder and
tumult, and in that confusion attempted a resistance; but they neither
were all there, nor supported one another; besides, the wind having
veered about beat the rain full in their faces. Neither indeed was the
storm less troublesome to the Romans, for that they could not
clearly discern one another, insomuch that even Pompey himself,
being unknown, escaped narrowly; for when one of his soldiers demanded
of him the word of battle, it happened that he was somewhat slow in
his answer, which might have cost him his life.
  The enemy being routed with a great slaughter (for it is said that
of twenty thousand there escaped but three thousand), the army saluted
Pompey by the name of Imperator; but he declined if, telling them that
he could not by any means accept of that title as long as he saw the
camp of the enemy standing; but if they designed to make him worthy of
the honour, they must first demolish that. The soldiers on hearing
this went at once and made an assault upon the works and trenches, and
there Pompey fought without his helmet, in memory of his former
danger, and to avoid the like. The camp was thus taken by storm, and
among the rest Domitius was slain. After that overthrow, the cities of
the country thereabouts were all either secured by surrender, or taken
by storm. King Iarbas, likewise, a confederate and auxiliary of
Domitius, was taken prisoner, and his kingdom was given to Hiempsal.
  Pompey could not rest here, but being ambitious to follow the good
fortune and use the valour of his army, entered Numidia; and
marching forward many days' journey up into the country, he
conquered all where-ever he came. And having revived the terror of the
Roman power, which was now almost obliterated among the barbarous
nations, he said likewise, that the wild beasts of Africa ought not to
be left without some experience of the courage and success of the
Romans, and therefore he bestowed some few days in hunting lions and
elephants. And it is said that it was not above the space of forty
days at the utmost in which he gave a total overthrow to the enemy,
reduced Africa, and established the affairs of the kings and
kingdoms of all that country, being then in the twenty-fourth year
of his age.
  When Pompey returned back to the city of Utica, there were presented
to him letters and orders from Sylla, commanding him to disband the
rest of his army, and himself with one legion only to wait there the
coming of another general, to succeed him in the government. This,
inwardly, was extremely grievous to Pompey, though he made no show
of it. But the army resented it openly, and when Pompey besought
them to depart and go home before him, they began to revile Sylla, and
declared broadly that they were resolved not to forsake him, neither
did they think it safe for him to trust the tyrant. Pompey at first
endeavoured to appease and pacify them by fair speeches; but when he
saw that his persuasions were vain, he left the bench, and retired
to his tent with tears in his eyes. But the soldiers followed him, and
seizing upon him, by force brought him again, and placed him in his
tribunal; where great part of that day was spent in dispute, they on
their part persuading him to stay and command them, he, on the other
side, pressing upon them obedience and the danger of mutiny. At
last, when they grew yet more importunate and clamorous, he swore that
he would kill himself if they attempted to force him; and scarcely
even thus appeased them. Nevertheless, the first tidings brought to
Sylla were that Pompey was up in rebellion; on which he remarked to
some of his friends, "I see, then, it is my destiny to contend with
children in my old age;" alluding at the same time to Marius, who,
being but a mere youth, had given him great trouble, and brought him
into extreme danger. But being undeceived afterwards by better
intelligence, and finding the whole city prepared to meet Pompey,
and receive him with every display of kindness and honour, he resolved
to exceed them all. And, therefore, going out foremost to meet him and
embracing him with great cordiality, he gave him his welcome aloud
in the title of Magnus, or the Great, and bade all that were present
call him by that name. Others say that he had this title first given
him by a general acclamation of all the army in Africa, but that it
was fixed upon him by this ratification of Sylla. It is certain that
he himself was the last that owned the title; for it was a long time
after, when he was sent proconsul into Spain against Sertorius, that
he began to write himself in his letters and commissions by the name
of Pompeius Magnus; common and familiar use having then worn off the
invidiousness of the title. And one cannot but accord respect and
admiration to the ancient Romans, who did not reward the successes
of action and conduct in war alone with such honourable titles, but
adorned likewise the virtue and services of eminent men in civil
government with the same distinctions and marks of honour. Two persons
received from the people the name of Maximus, or the Greatest,
Valerius for reconciling the senate and people, and Fabius Rullus,
because he put out of the senate certain sons of freed slaves who
had been admitted into it because of their wealth.
  Pompey now desired the honour of a triumph, which Sylla opposed,
alleging that the law allowed that honour to none but consuls and
praetors, and therefore Scipio the elder, who subdued the
Carthaginians in Spain in far greater and nobler conflicts, never
petitioned for a triumph, because he had never been consul or praetor;
and if Pompey, who had scarcely yet fully grown a beard, and was not
of age to be a senator, should enter the city in triumph, what a
weight of envy would it bring, he said, at once upon his government
and Pompey's honour. This was his language to Pompey, intimating
that he could not by any means yield to his request, but if he would
persist in his ambition, that he was resolved to interpose his power
to humble him. Pompey, however, was not daunted; but bade Sylla
recollect that more worshipped the rising than the setting sun; as
if to tell him that his power was increasing and Sylla's in the
wane. Sylla did not perfectly hear the words, but observing a sort
of amazement and wonder in the looks and gestures of those that did
hear them, he asked what it was that he said. When it was told him, he
seemed astounded at Pompey's boldness, and cried out twice together,
"Let him triumph," and when others began to show their
disapprobation and offence at it, Pompey, it is said, to gall and
vex them the more, designed to have his triumphant chariot drawn
with four elephants (having brought over several which belonged to the
African kings), but the gates of the city being too narrow, he was
forced to desist from that project, and be content with horses. And
when his soldiers, who had not received as large rewards as they had
expected, began to clamour, and interrupt the triumph, Pompey regarded
these as little as the rest, and plainly told them that he had
rather lose the honour of his triumph than flatter them. Upon which
Servilius, a man of great distinction, and at first one of the chief
opposers of Pompey's triumph, said, he now perceived that Pompey was
truly great and worthy of a triumph. It is clear that he might
easily have been a senator, also, if he had wished, but he did not sue
for that, being ambitious, it seems, only of unusual honours. For what
wonder had it been for Pompey to sit in the senate before his time?
But to triumph before he was in the senate was really an excess of
glory.
  And, moreover, it did not a little ingratiate him with the people,
who were much pleased to see him after his triumph take his place
again among the Roman knights. On the other side, it was no less
distasteful to Sylla to see how fast he came on, and to what a
height of glory and power he was advancing; yet being ashamed to
hinder him, he kept quiet. But when, against his direct wishes, Pompey
got Lepidus made consul, having openly joined in the canvass and, by
the good-will the people felt for himself, conciliated their favour
for Lepidus, Sylla could forbear no longer; but when he saw him coming
away from the election through the forum with a great train after him,
cried out to him, "Well, young man, I see you rejoice in your victory.
And, indeed, is it not a most generous and worthy act, that the
consulship should be given to Lepidus, the vilest of men, in
preference to Catulus, the best and most deserving in the city, and
all by your influence with the people? It will be well, however, for
you to be wakeful and look to your interests; as you have been
making your enemy stronger than yourself." But that which gave the
clearest demonstration of Sylla's ill-will to Pompey was his last will
and testament; for whereas he bequeathed several legacies to all the
rest of his friends, and appointed some of them guardians to his
son, he passed by Pompey without the least remembrance. However,
Pompey bore this with great moderation and temper; and when Lepidus
and others were disposed to obstruct his interment in the Campus
Martius, and to prevent any public funeral taking place, came
forward in support of it, and saw his obsequies performed with all
honour and security.
  Shortly after the death of Sylla, his prophetic words were
fulfilled; and Lepidus proposing to be the successor to all his
power and authority, without any ambiguities or pretences, immediately
appeared in arms, rousing once more and gathering about him all the
long dangerous remains of the old factions, which had escaped the hand
of Sylla. Catulus, his colleague, who was followed by the sounder part
of the senate and people, was a man of the greatest esteem among the
Romans for wisdom and justice; but his talent lay in the government of
the city rather than the camp, whereas the exigency required the skill
of Pompey. Pompey, therefore, was not long in suspense which way to
dispose of himself, but joining with the nobility, was presently
appointed general of the army against Lepidus, who had already
raised up war in great part of Italy, and held Cisalpine Gaul in
subjection with an army under Brutus. As for the rest of his
garrisons, Pompey subdued them with ease in his march, but Mutina in
Gaul resisted in a formal siege, and he lay here a long time
encamped against Brutus. In the meantime Lepidus marched in all
haste against Rome, and sitting down before it with a crowd of
followers, to the terror of those within, demanded a second
consulship. But that fear quickly vanished upon letters sent from
Pompey, announcing that he had ended the war without a battle; for
Brutus, either betraying his army, or being betrayed by their
revolt, surrendered himself to Pompey, and receiving a guard of horse,
was conducted to a little town upon the river Po, where he was slain
the next day by Geminius, in execution of Pompey's commands. And for
this Pompey was much censured; for, having at the beginning of the
revolt written to the senate that Brutus had voluntarily surrendered
himself, immediately afterward he sent other letters, with matter of
accusation against the man after he was taken off. Brutus, who, with
Cassius, slew Caesar, was son to this Brutus; neither in war nor in
his death like his father, as appears at large in his life. Lepidus,
upon this being driven out of Italy, fled to Sardinia, where he fell
sick and died of sorrow, not for his public misfortunes, as they
say, but upon the discovery of a letter proving his wife to have
been unfaithful to him.
  There yet remained Sertorius, a very different general from Lepidus,
in possession of Spain, and making himself formidable to Rome; the
final disease, as it were, in which the scattered evils of the civil
wars had now collected. He had already cut off various inferior
commanders, and was at this time coping with Metellus Pius, a man of
repute and a good soldier, though perhaps he might now seem too
slow, by reason of his age, to second and improve the happier
moments of war, and might be sometimes wanting to those advantages
which Sertorius, by his quickness and dexterity, would wrest out of
his hands. For Sertorius was always hovering about, and coming upon
him unawares, like a captain of thieves rather than soldiers,
disturbing him perpetually with ambuscades and light skirmishes;
whereas Metellus was accustomed to regular conduct, and fighting in
battle array with full-armed soldiers. Pompey, therefore, keeping
his army in readiness, made it his object to be sent in aid to
Metellus; neither would he be induced to disband his forces,
notwithstanding that Catulus called upon him to do so, but by some
colourable device or other he still kept them in arms about the
city, until the senate at last thought fit, upon the report of
Lucius Philippus, to decree him that government. At that time, they
say, one of the senators there expressing his wonder and demanding
of Philippus whether his meaning was that Pompey should be sent into
Spain as proconsul, "No," replied Philippus, "but as proconsuls," as
if both consuls for that year were in his opinion wholly useless.
  When Pompey was arrived in Spain, as is usual upon the fame of a new
leader, men began to be inspired with new hopes, and those nations
that had not entered into a very strict alliance with Sertorius
began to waver and revolt; whereupon Sertorius uttered various
arrogant and scornful speeches against Pompey, saying, in derision,
that he should want no other weapon but a ferula and rod to chastise
this boy with, if he were not afraid of that old woman, meaning
Metellus. Yet in deed and reality he stood in awe of Pompey, and
kept on his guard against him, as appeared by his whole management
of the war, which he was observed to conduct much more warily than
before: for Metellus, which one would not have imagined, was grown
excessively luxurious in his habits, having given himself over to
self-indulgence and pleasure, and from a moderate and temperate became
suddenly a sumptuous and ostentatious liver, so that this very thing
gained Pompey great reputation and good-will, as he made himself
somewhat specially an example of frugality, although that virtue was
habitual in him, and required no great industry to exercise it, as
he was naturally inclined to temperance, and no ways inordinate in his
desires. The fortune of the war was very various; nothing, however,
annoyed Pompey so much as the taking of the town of Lauron by
Sertorius. For when Pompey thought he had him safe enclosed, and had
boasted somewhat largely of raising the siege, he found himself all of
a sudden encompassed; insomuch that he durst not move out of his camp;
but was forced to sit still whilst the city was taken and burnt before
his face. However, afterwards, in a battle near Valentia, he gave a
great defeat to Herennius and Perpenna, two commanders among the
refugees who had fled to Sertorius, and now lieutenants under him,
in which he slew above ten thousand men.
  Pompey, being elated and filled with confidence by this victory,
made all haste to engage Sertorius himself, and the rather lest
Metellus should come in for a share in the honour of the victory. Late
in the day towards sunset they joined battle near the river Sucro,
both being in fear lest Metellus should come: Pompey, that he might
engage alone, Sertorius, that he might have one alone to engage
with. The issue of the battle proved doubtful, for a wing of each side
had the better, but of the generals Sertorius had the greater
honour, for that he maintained his post, having put to flight the
entire division that was opposed to him, whereas Pompey was himself
almost made a prisoner; for being set upon by a strong man-at-arms
that fought on foot (he being on horseback), as they were closely
engaged hand to hand the strokes of their swords chanced to light upon
their hands, but with a different success; for Pompey's was a slight
wound only, whereas he cut off the other's hand. However, it
happened so, that many now falling upon Pompey together, and his own
forces there being put to the rout, he made his escape beyond
expectation, by quitting his horse, and turning him out among the
enemy. For the horse being richly adorned with golden trappings, and
having a caparison of great value, the soldiers quarrelled among
themselves for the booty, so that while they were fighting with one
another, and dividing the spoil, Pompey made his escape. By break of
day the next morning each drew out his forces into the field to
claim the victory; but Metellus coming up, Sertorius vanished,
having broken up and dispersed his army. For this was the way in which
he used to raise and disband his armies, so that sometimes he would be
wandering up and down all alone, and at other times again he would
come pouring into the field at the head of no less than one hundred
and fifty thousand fighting men, swelling of a sudden like a winter
torrent.
  When Pompey was going, after the battle, to meet and welcome
Metellus, and when they were near one another, he commanded his
attendants to lower their rods in honour of Metellus, as his senior
and superior. But Metellus on the other side forbade it, and behaved
himself in general very obligingly to him, not claiming any
prerogative either in respect of his consular rank or seniority;
excepting only that when they encamped together, the watchword was
given to the whole camp by Metellus. But generally they had their
camps asunder, being divided and distracted by the enemy, who took all
shapes, and being always in motion, would by some skilful artifice
appear in a variety of places almost in the same instant, drawing them
from one attack to another, and at last keeping them from foraging,
wasting the country, and holding the dominion of the sea, Sertorius
drove them both out of that part of Spain which was under his control,
and forced them, for want of necessaries, to retreat into provinces
that did not belong to them.
  Pompey, having made use of and expended the greatest part of his own
private revenues upon the war, sent and demanded moneys of the senate,
adding that, in case they did not furnish him speedily, he should be
forced to return into Italy with his army. Lucullus being consul at
that time, though at variance with Pompey, yet in consideration that
he himself was a candidate for the command against Mithridates,
procured and hastened these supplies, fearing lest there should be any
pretence or occasion given to Pompey of returning home, who of himself
was no less desirous of leaving Sertorius and of undertaking the war
against Mithridates, as an enterprise which by all appearance would
prove much more honourable and not so dangerous. In the meantime
Sertorius died, being treacherously murdered by some of his own party;
and Perpenna, the chief among them, took the command and attempted
to carry on the same enterprises with Sertorius, having indeed the
same forces and the same means, only wanting the same skill and
conduct in the use of them. Pompey therefore marched directly
against Perpenna, and finding him acting merely at random in his
affairs, had a decoy ready for him, and sent out a detachment of ten
cohorts into the level country with orders to range up and down and
disperse themselves abroad. The bait took accordingly, and no sooner
had Perpenna turned upon the prey and had them in chase, but Pompey
appeared suddenly with all his army, and joining battle, gave him a
total overthrow. Most of his officers were slain in the field, and
he himself being brought prisoner to Pompey, was by his order put to
death. Neither was Pompey guilty in this of ingratitude or
unmindfulness of what had occurred in Sicily, which some have laid
to his charge, but was guided by a high-minded policy and a deliberate
counsel for the security of his country. For Perpenna, having in his
custody all Sertorius's papers, offered to produce several letters
from the greatest men in Rome, who, desirous of a change and
subversion of the government, had invited Sertorius into Italy. And
Pompey, fearing that these might be the occasion of worse wars than
those which were now ended, thought it advisable to put Perpenna to
death, and burnt the letters without reading them.
  Pompey continued in Spain after this so long a time as was necessary
for the suppression of all the greatest disorders in the province; and
after moderating and allaying the more violent heats of affairs there,
returned with his army into Italy, where he arrived, as chance would
have it, in the height of the servile war. Accordingly, upon his
arrival, Crassus, the commander in that war, at some hazard,
precipitated a battle, in which he had great success, and slew upon
the place twelve thousand three hundred of the insurgents. Nor yet was
he so quick, but that fortune reserved to Pompey some share of
honour in the success of this war, for five thousand of those that had
escaped out of the battle fell into his hands; and when he had totally
cut them off, he wrote to the senate, that Crassus had overthrown
the slaves in battle, but that he had plucked up the whole war by
the roots. And it was agreeable in Rome both thus to say, and thus
to hear said, because of the general favour of Pompey. But of the
Spanish war and the conquest of Sertorius, no one, even in jest, could
have ascribed the honour to any one else. Nevertheless, all this
high respect for him, and this desire to see him come home, were not
unmixed with apprehensions and suspicions that he might perhaps not
disband his army, but take his way by force of arms and a supreme
command to the seat of Sylla. And so in the number of all those that
ran out to meet him and congratulate his return, as many went out of
fear as affection. But after Pompey had removed this alarm, by
declaring beforehand that he would discharge the army after his
triumph, those that envied him could now only complain that he
affected popularity, courting the common people more than the
nobility, and that whereas Sylla had abolished the tribuneship of
the people, he designed to gratify the people by restoring that
office, which was indeed the fact. For there was not any one thing
that the people of Rome were more wildly eager for, or more
passionately desired, than the restoration of that office, insomuch
that Pompey thought himself extremely fortunate in this opportunity,
despairing (if he were anticipated by some one else in this) of ever
meeting with any other sufficient means of expressing his gratitude
for the favours which he had received from the people.
  Though a second triumph was decreed him, and he was declared consul,
yet all these honours did not seem so great an evidence of his power
and glory as the ascendant which he had over Crassus; for he, the
wealthiest among all the statesmen of his time, and the most
eloquent and greatest too, who had looked down on Pompey himself and
on all others beneath him, durst not appear a candidate for the
consulship before he had applied to Pompey. The request was made
accordingly, and was eagerly embraced by Pompey, who had long sought
an occasion to oblige him in some friendly office; so that he
solicited for Crassus, and entreated the people heartily, declaring
that their favour would be no less to him in choosing Crassus his
colleague, than in making himself consul. Yet for all this, when
they were created consuls, they were always at variance, and
opposing one another. Crassus prevailed most in the senate, and
Pompey's power was no less with the people, he having restored to them
the office of tribune, and having allowed the courts of judicature
to be transferred back to the knights by a new law. He himself in
person, too, afforded them a most grateful spectacle, when he appeared
and craved his discharge from the military service. For it is an
ancient custom among the Romans that the knights, when they had served
out their legal time in the wars, should lead their horses into the
market-place before the two officers, called censors, and having given
an account of the commanders and generals under whom they served, as
also of the places and actions of their service, should be discharged,
every man with honour or disgrace, according to his deserts. There
were then sitting in state upon the bench two censors, Gellius and
Lentulus, inspecting the knights, who were passing by in muster before
them, when Pompey was seen coming down into the forum, with all the
ensigns of a consul, but leading his horse in his hand. When he came
up, he bade his lictors make way for him, and so he led his horse to
the bench; the people being all this while in a sort of amaze, and all
in silence, and the censors themselves regarding the sight with a
mixture of respect and gratification. Then the senior censor
examined him: "Pompeius Magnus, I demand of you whether you have
served the full time in the wars that is prescribed by the law?"
"Yes," replied Pompey, with a loud voice, "I have served all, and
all under myself as general." The people hearing this gave a great
shout, and made such an outcry for delight, that there was no
appeasing it; and the censors rising from their judgment seat
accompanied him home to gratify the multitude who followed after,
clapping their hands and shouting.
  Pompey's consulship was now expiring, and yet his difference with
Crassus increasing, when one Caius Aurelius, a knight, a man who had
declined public business all his lifetime, mounted the hustings, and
addressed himself in an oration to the assembly, declaring that
Jupiter had appeared to him in a dream, commanding him to tell the
consuls that they should not give up office until they were friends.
After this was said, Pompey stood silent, but Crassus took him by
the hand, and spoke in this manner: "I do not think,
fellow-citizens, that I shall do anything mean or dishonourable in
yielding first to Pompey, whom you were pleased to ennoble with the
title of Great, when as yet he scarce had a hair on his face; and
granted the honour of two triumphs before he had a place in the
senate." Hereupon they were reconciled and laid down their office.
Crassus resumed the manner of life which he had always pursued before;
but Pompey in the great generality of causes for judgment declined
appearing on either side, and by degrees withdrew himself totally from
the forum, showing himself but seldom in public; and, whenever he did,
it was with a great train after him. Neither was it easy to meet or
visit him without a crowd of people about him; he was most pleased
to make his appearance before large numbers at once, as though he
wished to maintain in this way his state and majesty, and as if he
held himself bound to preserve his dignity from contact with the
addresses and conversation of common people. And life in the robe of
peace is only too apt to lower the reputation of men that have grown
great by arms, who naturally find difficulty in adapting themselves to
the habits of civil equality. They expect to be treated as the first
in the city, even as they were in the camp; and on the other hand, men
who in war were nobody, think it intolerable if in the city at any
rate they are not to take the lead. And so when a warrior renowned for
victories and triumphs shall turn advocate and appear among them in
the forum, they endeavour their utmost to obscure and depress him;
whereas, if he gives up any pretensions here and retires, they will
maintain his military honour and authority beyond the reach of envy.
Events themselves not long after showed the truth of this.
  The power of the pirates first commenced in Cilicia, having in truth
but a precarious and obscure beginning, but gained life and boldness
afterwards in the wars of Mithridates, where they hired themselves out
and took employment in the king's service. Afterwards, whilst the
Romans were embroiled in their civil wars, being engaged against one
another even before the very gates of Rome, the seas lay waste and
unguarded, and by degrees enticed and drew them on not only to seize
upon and spoil the merchants and ships upon the seas, but also to
lay waste the islands and seaport towns. So that now there embarked
with these pirates men of wealth and noble birth and superior
abilities, as if it had been a natural occupation to gain
distinction in. They had divers arsenals, or piratic harbours, as
likewise watch-towers and beacons, all along the sea-coast; and fleets
were here received that were well manned with the finest mariners, and
well served with the expertest pilots, and composed of swift-sailing
and light-built vessels adapted for their special purpose. Nor was
it merely their being thus formidable that excited indignation; they
were even more odious for their ostentation than they were feared
for their force. Their ships had gilded masts at their stems; the
sails woven of purple, and the oars plated with silver, as if their
delight were to glory in their iniquity. There was nothing but music
and dancing, banqueting and revels, all along the shore. Officers in
command were taken prisoners, and cities put under contribution, to
the reproach and dishonour of the Roman supremacy.
  There were of these corsairs above one thousand sail, and they had
taken no less than four hundred cities, committing sacrilege upon
the temples of the gods, and enriching themselves with the spoils of
many never violated before, such as were those of Claros, Didyma,
and Samothrace; and the temple of the Earth in Hermione, and that of
Aesculapius in Epidaurus, those of Neptune at the Isthmus, at
Taenarus, and at Calauria; those of Apollo at Actium and Leucas, and
those of Juno in Samos, at Argos, and at Lacinium. They themselves
offered strange sacrifices upon Mount Olympus, and performed certain
secret rites or religious mysteries, among which those of Mithras have
been preserved to our own time having received their previous
institution from them. But besides these insolencies by sea, they were
also injurious to the Romans by land; for they would often go inland
up the roads, plundering and destroying their villages and
country-houses. Once they seized upon two Roman praetors, Sextilius
and Bellinus, in their purple-edged robes, and carried them off
together with their officers and lictors. The daughter also of
Antonius. a man that had had the honour of a triumph, taking a journey
into the country, was seized, and redeemed upon payment of a large
ransom. But it was most abusive of all that, when any of the
captives declared himself to be a Roman, and told his name, they
affected to be surprised, and feigning fear, smote their thighs and
fell down at his feet humbly beseeching him to be gracious and forgive
them.
  The captives, seeing them so humble and suppliant, believed them
to be in earnest; and some of them now would proceed to put Roman
shoes on his feet, and to dress him in a Roman gown, to prevent,
they said, his being mistaken another time. After all this
pageantry, when they had thus deluded and mocked him long enough, at
last putting out a ship's ladder, when they were in the midst of the
sea, they told him he was free to go, and wished him a pleasant
journey; and if he resisted they themselves threw him overboard and
drowned him.
  This piratic power having got the dominion and control of all the
Mediterranean, there was left no place for navigation or commerce. And
this it was which most of all made the Romans, finding themselves to
be extremely straitened in their markets, and considering that if it
should continue, there would be a dearth and famine in the land,
determined at last to send out Pompey to recover the seas from the
pirates. Gabinius, one of Pompey's friends, preferred a law, whereby
there was granted to him, not only the government of the seas as
admiral, but, in direct words, sole and irresponsible sovereignty over
all men. For the decree gave him absolute power and authority in all
the seas within the pillars of Hercules, and in the adjacent
mainland for the space of four hundred furlongs from the sea. Now
there were but few regions in the Roman empire out of that compass;
and the greatest of the nations and most powerful of the kings were
included in the limit. Moreover, by this decree he had a power of
selecting fifteen lieutenants out of the senate, and of assigning to
each his province in charge; then he might take likewise out of the
treasury and out of the hands of the revenue-farmers what moneys he
pleased; as also two hundred sail of ships, with a power to press
and levy what soldiers and seamen he thought fit.
  When this law was read, the common people approved of it
exceedingly, but the chief men and most important among the senators
looked upon it as an exorbitant power, even beyond the reach of
envy, but well deserving their fears. Therefore concluding with
themselves that such unlimited authority was dangerous, they agreed
unanimously to oppose the bill, and all went against it, except
Caesar, who gave his vote for the law, not to gratify Pompey, but
the people, whose favour he had courted underhand from the
beginning, and hoped to compass for himself. The rest inveighed
bitterly against Pompey, insomuch that one of the consuls told him
that, if he was ambitious of the place of Romulus, he would scarce
avoid his end, but he was in danger of being torn to pieces by the
multitude for his speech. Yet when Catulus stood up to speak against
the law, the people in reverence to him were silent and attentive. And
when, after saying much in the most honourable terms in favour of
Pompey, he proceeded to advise the people in kindness to spare him,
and not to expose a man of his value to such a succession of dangers
and wars, "For," said he, "where could you find another Pompey, or
whom would you have in case you should chance to lose him?" they all
cried out with one voice, "Yourself." And so Catulus, finding all
his rhetoric ineffectual, desisted. Then Roscius attempted to speak,
but could obtain no hearing, and made signs with his fingers,
intimating, "Not him alone," but that there might be a second Pompey
or colleague in authority with him. Upon this, it is said, the
multitude, being extremely incensed, made such a loud outcry, that a
crow flying over the market-place at that instant was struck, and
dropped down among the crowd; whence it would appear that the cause of
birds falling down to the ground is not any rupture or division of the
air causing a vacuum, but purely the actual stroke of the voice,
which, when carried up in a great mass and with violence, raises a
sort of tempest and billow, as it were, in the air.
  The assembly broke up for that day; and when the day was come on
which the bill was to pass by suffrage into a decree, Pompey went
privately into the country; but hearing that it was passed and
confirmed, he returned again into the city by night, to avoid the envy
that might be occasioned by the concourse of people that would meet
and congratulate him. The next morning he came abroad and sacrificed
to the gods, and having audience at an open assembly, so handled the
matter that they enlarged his power, giving him many things besides
what was already granted, and almost doubling the preparation
appointed in the former decree. Five hundred ships were manned for
him, and an army raised of one hundred and twenty thousand foot and
five thousand horse. Twenty-four senators that had been generals of
armies were appointed to serve as lieutenants under him, and to
these were added two quaestors. Now it happened within this time
that the prices of provisions were much reduced which gave an occasion
to the joyful people of saying that the very name of Pompey had
ended the war. However, Pompey, in pursuance of his charge, divided
all the seas and the whole Mediterranean into thirteen parts,
allotting a squadron to each, under the command of his officers; and
having thus dispersed his power into all quarters, and encompassed the
pirates everywhere, they began to fall into his hands by whole shoals,
which he seized and brought into his harbours. As for those that
withdrew themselves betimes, or otherwise escaped his general chase,
they all made to Cilicia, where they bid themselves as in their hives;
against whom Pompey now proceeded in person with sixty of his best
ships, not, however, until he had first scoured and cleared all the
seas near Rome, the Tyrrhenian, and the African, and all the waters of
Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily; all which he performed in the space
of forty days by his own indefatigable industry and the zeal of his
lieutenants.
  Pompey met with some interruption in Rome, through the malice and
envy of Piso, the consul, who had given some check to his
proceedings by withholding his stores and discharging his seamen;
whereupon he sent his fleet round to Brundusium, himself going the
nearest way by land through Tuscany to Rome; which was no sooner known
by the people than they all flocked out to meet him upon the way as if
they had not sent him out but a few days before. What chiefly
excited their joy was the unexpectedly rapid change in the markets,
which abounded now with the greatest plenty, so that Piso was in great
danger to have been deprived of his consulship, Gabinius having a
law ready prepared for that purpose but Pompey forbade it, behaving
himself as in that, so in all things else, with great moderation,
and when he had made sure of all that he wanted or desired, he
departed for Brundusium, whence he set sail in pursuit of the pirates.
And though he was straitened in time, and his hasty voyage forced
him to sail by several cities without touching, yet he would not
pass by the city of Athens unsaluted; but landing there, after he
had sacrificed to the gods, and made an address to the people, as he
was returning out of the city, he read at the gates two epigrams, each
in a single line, written in his own praise; one within the gate:-

         "Thy humbler thoughts make thee a god the more;"
the other without:-

         "Adieu we bid, who welcome bade before."

Now because Pompey had shown himself merciful to some of these pirates
that were yet roving in bodies about the seas, having upon their
supplication ordered a seizure of their ships and persons only,
without any further process or severity, therefore the rest of their
comrades, in hopes of mercy too, made their escape from his other
commanders, and surrendered themselves with their wives and children
into his protection. He continued to pardon all that came in, and
the rather because by them he might make discovery of those who fled
from his justice, as conscious that their crimes were beyond an act of
indemnity. The most numerous and important part of these conveyed
their families and treasures, with all their people that were unfit
for war, into castles and strong forts about Mount Taurus; but they
themselves, having well manned their galleys, embarked for
Coracesium in Cilicia, where they received Pompey and gave him battle.
Here they had a final overthrow, and retired to the land, where they
were besieged. At last, having despatched their heralds to him with
a submission, they delivered up to his mercy themselves, their
towns, islands, and strongholds, all which they had so fortified
that they were almost impregnable, and scarcely even accessible.
  Thus was this war ended, and the whole power of the pirates at sea
dissolved everywhere in the space of three months, wherein, besides
a great number of other vessels, he took ninety men-of-war with brazen
beaks and likewise prisoners of war to the number of no less than
twenty thousand.
  As regarded the disposal of these prisoners, he never so much as
entertained the thought of putting them to death; and yet it might
be no less dangerous on the other hand to disperse them, as they might
reunite and make head again, being numerous, poor, and warlike.
Therefore wisely weighing with himself that man by nature is not a
wild or unsocial creature, neither was he born so, but makes himself
what he naturally is not by vicious habit; and that again, on the
other side, he is civilized and grows gentle by a change of place,
occupation, and manner of life, as beasts themselves that are wild
by nature become tame and tractable by housing and gentler usage, upon
this consideration he determined to translate these pirates from sea
to land, and give them a taste of an honest and innocent course of
life by living in towns and tilling the ground. Some therefore were
admitted into the small and half-peopled towns of the Cilicians,
who, for an enlargement of their territories, were willing to
receive them. Others he planted in the city of the Solians, which
had been lately laid waste by Tigranes, King of Armenia, and which
he now restored. But the largest number were settled in Dyme, the town
of Achaea, at that time extremely depopulated, and possessing an
abundance of good land.
  However, these proceedings could not escape the envy and censure
of his enemies; and the course he took against Metellus in Crete was
disapproved of even by the chiefest of his friends. For Metellus, a
relation of Pompey's former colleague in Spain, had been sent
praetor into Crete, before this province of the seas was assigned to
Pompey. Now Crete was the second source of pirates next to Cilicia,
and Metellus having shut up a number of them in their strongholds
there was engaged in reducing and extirpating them. Those that were
yet remaining and besieged sent their supplications to Pompey, and
invited him into the island as a part of his province, alleging it
to fall, every part of it, within the distance from the sea
specified in his commission, and so within the precincts of his
charge. Pompey receiving the submission, sent letters to Metellus,
commanding him to leave off the war; and others in like manner to
the cities, in which he charged them not to yield any obedience to the
commands of Metellus. And after these he sent Lucius Octavius, one
of his lieutenants, to act as general, who entering the besieged
fortifications, and fighting in defence of the pirates, rendered
Pompey not odious only, but even ridiculous too; that he should lend
his name as a guard to a nest of thieves, that knew neither god nor
law, and made his reputation serve as a sanctuary to them, only out of
pure envy and emulation to Metellus. For neither was Achilles
thought to act the part of a man, but rather of a mere boy, mad
after glory, when by signs he forbade the rest of the Greeks to strike
at Hector-

                          "For fear
          Some other hand should give the blow, and he
          Lose the first honour of the victory."

Whereas Pompey even sought to preserve the common enemies of the world
only that he might deprive a Roman praetor, after all his labours of
the honour of a triumph. Metellus, however, was not daunted, but
prosecuted the war against the pirates, expelled them from their
strongholds and punished them; and dismissed Octavius with the insults
and reproaches of the whole camp.
  When the news came to Rome that the war with the pirates was at an
end, and that Pompey was unoccupied, diverting himself in visits to
the cities for want of employment, one Manlius, a tribune of the
people, preferred a law that Pompey should have all the forces of
Lucullus, and the provinces under his government, together with
Bithynia, which was under the command of Glabrio; and that he should
forthwith conduct the war against the two kings, Mithridates and
Tigranes, retaining still the same naval forces and the sovereignty of
the seas as before. But this was nothing less than to constitute one
absolute monarch of all the Roman empire. For the provinces which
seemed to be exempt from his commission by the former decree, such
as were Phrygia, Lycaonia, Galatia, Cappadocia, Cilicia, the upper
Colchis, and Armenia, were all added in by this latter law, together
with all the troops and forces with which Lucullus had defeated
Mithridates and Tigranes. And though Lucullus was thus simply robbed
of the glory of his achievements in having a successor assigned him,
rather to the honour of his triumph than the danger of the war; yet
this was of less moment in the eyes of the aristocratical party,
though they could not but admit the injustice and ingratitude to
Lucullus. But their great grievance was that the power of Pompey
should be converted into a manifest tyranny; and they therefore
exhorted and encouraged one another privately to bend all their forces
in opposition to this law, and not tamely to cast away their
liberty; yet when the day came on which it was to pass into a
decree, their hearts failed them for fear of the people, and all
were silent except Catulus, who boldly inveighed against the law and
its proposer, and when he found that he could do nothing with the
people, turned to the senate, crying out and bidding them seek out
some mountain as their forefathers had done, and fly to the rocks
where they might preserve their liberty. The law passed into a decree,
as it is said, by the suffrages of all the tribes. And Pompey, in
his absence, was made lord of almost all that power which Sylla only
obtained by force of arms, after a conquest of the very city itself.
  When Pompey had advice by letters of the decree, it is said that
in the presence of his friends, who came to give him joy of his
honour, he seemed displeased, frowning and smiting his thigh, and
exclaimed as ore over-burdened and weary of government, "Alas, what
a series of labours upon labours! If I am never to end my service as a
soldier, nor to escape from this invidious greatness and live at
home in the country with my wife, I had better have been an unknown
man." But all this was looked upon as mere trifling, neither indeed
could the best of his friends call it anything else, well knowing that
his enmity with Lucullus, setting a flame just now to his natural
passion for glory and empire, made him feel more than usually
gratified.
  As indeed appeared not long afterwards by his actions, which clearly
unmasked him; for, in the first place, he sent out his proclamations
into all quarters, commanding the soldiers to join him, and summoned
all the tributary kings and princes within his charge; and in short,
as soon as he had entered upon his province, he left nothing unaltered
that had been done and established by Lucullus. To some he remitted
their penalties, and deprived others of their rewards, and acted in
all respects as if with the express design that the admirers of
Lucullus might know that all his authority was at an end.
  Lucullus expostulated by friends, and it was thought fitting that
there should be a meeting betwixt them; and accordingly they met in
the country of Galatia. As they were both great and successful
generals, their officers bore their rods before them all wreathed with
branches of laurel; Lucullus came through a country full of green
trees and shady woods, but Pompey's march was through a cold and
barren district. Therefore the lictors of Lucullus, perceiving that
Pompey's laurels were withered and dry, helped him to some of their
own, and adorned and crowned his rods with fresh laurels. This was
thought ominous, and looked as if Pompey came to take away the
reward and honour of Lucullus's victories. Lucullus had the priority
in the order of consulships, and also in age; but Pompey's two
triumphs made him the greater man. Their first addresses in this
interview were dignified and friendly, each magnifying the other's
actions, and offering congratulations upon his success. But when
they came to the matter of their conference or treaty, they could
agree on no fair or equitable terms of any kind, but even came to
harsh words against each other, Pompey upbraiding Lucullus with
avarice, and Lucullus retorting ambition upon Pompey, so that their
friends could hardly part them. Lucullus remaining in Galatia, made
a distribution of the lands within his conquests, and gave presents to
whom he pleased; and Pompey encamping not far distant from him, sent
out his prohibitions, forbidding the execution of any of the orders of
Lucullus, and commanded away all his soldiers, except sixteen hundred,
whom he thought likely to be unserviceable to himself, being
disorderly and mutinous, and whom he knew to be hostile to Lucullus;
and to these acts he added satirical speeches, detracting openly
from the glory of his actions, and giving out that the battles of
Lucullus had been but with the mere stage-shows and idle pictures of
royal pomp, whereas the real war against a genuine army, disciplined
by defeat, was reserved to him, Mithridates having now begun to be
in earnest, and having betaken himself to his shields, swords, and
horses. Lucullus, on the other side, to be even with him, replied,
that Pompey came to fight with the mere image and shadow of war, it
being his usual practice, like a lazy bird of prey, to come upon the
carcass when others had slain the dead, and to tear in pieces the
relics of a war.
  Thus he had appropriated to himself the victories over Sertorius,
over Lepidus, and over the insurgents under Spartacus; whereas this
last had been achieved by Crassus, that obtained by Catulus, and the
first won by Metellus. And therefore it was no great wonder that the
glory of the Pontic and Armenian war should be usurped by a man who
had condescended to any artifices to work himself into the honour of a
triumph over a few runaway slaves.
  After this Lucullus went away, and Pompey having placed his whole
navy in guard upon the seas betwixt Phoenicia and Bosphorus, himself
marched against Mithridates, who had a phalanx of thirty thousand
foot, with two thousand horse, yet durst not bid him battle. He had
encamped upon a strong mountain where it would have been hard to
attack him, but abandoned it in no long time as destitute of water. No
sooner was be gone but Pompey occupied it, and observing the plants
that were thriving there, together with the hollows which he found
in several places, conjectured that such a plot could not be without
springs, and therefore ordered his men to sink wells in every
corner. After which there was, in a little time, great plenty of water
throughout all the camp, insomuch that he wondered how it was possible
for Mithridates to be ignorant of this, during all that time of his
encampment there. After this Pompey followed him to his next camp, and
there drawing lines round about him, shut him in. But he, after having
endured a siege of forty-five days, made his escape secretly, and fled
away with all the best part of his army, having first put to death all
the sick and unserviceable. Not long after Pompey overtook him again
near the banks of the river Euphrates, and encamped close by him;
but fearing lest he should pass over the river and give him the slip
there too, he drew up his army to attack him at midnight. And at
that very time Mithridates, it is said, saw a vision in his dream
foreshowing what should come to pass. For he seemed to be under sail
in the Euxine Sea with a prosperous gale, and just in view of
Bosphorus, discoursing pleasantly with the ship's company, as one
overjoyed for his past danger and present security, when on a sudden
he found himself deserted of all, and floating upon a broken plank
of the ship at the mercy of the sea. Whilst he was thus labouring
under these passions and phantasms, his friends came and awaked him
with the news of Pompey's approach; who was now indeed so near at hand
that the fight must be for the camp itself, and the commanders
accordingly drew up the forces in battle array.
  Pompey perceiving how ready they were and well prepared for
defence began to doubt with himself whether he should put it to the
hazard of a fight in the dark, judging it more prudent to encompass
them only at present, lest they should fly, and to give them battle
with the advantage of numbers the next day. But his oldest officers
were of another opinion, and by entreaties and encouragements obtained
permission that they might charge them immediately. Neither was the
night so very dark, but that, though the moon was going down, it yet
gave light enough to discern a body, and indeed this was one
especial disadvantage to the king's army. For the Romans coming upon
them with the moon on their backs, the moon, being very low, and
just upon setting, cast the shadows a long way before their bodies,
reaching almost to the enemy, whose eyes were thus so much deceived
that not exactly discerning the distance, but imagining them to be
near at hand, they threw their darts at the shadows without the
least execution. The Romans therefore, perceiving this, ran in upon
them with a great shout; but the barbarians, all in a panic, unable to
endure the charge, turned and fled, and were put to great slaughter,
above ten thousand being slain; the camp also was taken. As for
Mithridates himself, he at the beginning of the onset, with a body
of eight hundred horse, charged through the Roman army, and made his
escape. But before long all the rest dispersed, some one way, some
another, and he was left only with three persons, among whom was his
concubine, Hypsicratia, a girl always of a manly and daring spirit,
and the king called her on that account Hypsicrates. She being attired
and mounted like a Persian horseman, accompanied the king in all his
flight, never weary even in the longest journey, nor ever failing to
attend the king in person, and look after his horse too, until they
came to Inora, a castle of the king's well stored with gold and
treasure. From thence Mithridates took his richest apparel, and gave
it among those that had resorted to him in their flight; and so to
every one of his friends he gave a deadly poison, that they might
not fall into the power of the enemy against their wills. From
thence he designed to have gone to Tigranes in Armenia, but being
prohibited by Tigranes, who put out a proclamation with a reward of
one hundred talents to any one that should apprehend him, he passed by
the headwaters of the river Euphrates and fled through the country
of Colchis.
  Pompey in the meantime made an invasion into Armenia upon the
invitation of young Tigranes, who was now in rebellion against his
father, and gave Pompey a meeting about the river Araxes, which
rises near the head of Euphrates, but turning its course and bending
towards the east, falls into the Caspian Sea. They two, therefore,
marched together through the country, taking in all the cities by
the way, and receiving their submission. But King Tigranes, having
lately suffered much in the war with Lucullus, and understanding
that Pompey was of a kind and gentle disposition, admitted Roman
troops into his royal palaces, and taking along with him his friends
and relations, went in person to surrender himself into the hands of
Pompey. He came as far as the trenches on horseback, but there he
was met by two of Pompey's lictors, who commanded him to alight and
walk on foot, for no man ever was seen on horseback within a Roman
camp. Tigranes submitted to this immediately, and not only so, but
loosing his sword, delivered up that too; and last of all, as soon
as he appeared before Pompey, he pulled off his royal turban, and
attempted to have laid it at his feet. Nay, worst of all, even he
himself had fallen prostrate as an humble suppliant at his knees had
not Pompey prevented it, taking him by the hand and placing him near
him, Tigranes himself on one side of him and his son upon the other.
Pompey now told him that the rest of his losses were chargeable upon
Lucullus, by whom he had been dispossessed of Syria, Phoenicia,
Cilicia, Galatia, and Sophene; but all that he had preserved to
himself entire till that time he should peaceably enjoy, paying the
sum of six thousand talents as a fine or penalty for injuries done
to the Romans, and that his son should have the kingdom of Sophene.
Tigranes himself was well pleased with these conditions of peace,
and when the Romans saluted him king, seemed to be overjoyed, and
promised to every common soldier half a mina of silver, to every
centurion ten minas, and to every tribune a talent; but the son was
displeased, insomuch that when he was invited to supper he replied,
that he did not stand in need of Pompey for that sort of honour, for
he would find out some other Roman to sup with. Upon this he was put
into close arrest, and reserved for the triumph.
  Not long after this Phraates, King of Parthia, sent to Pompey, and
demanded to have young Tigranes, as his son-in-law, given up to him,
and that the river Euphrates should be the boundary of the empires.
Pompey replied, that for Tigranes, he belonged more to his own natural
father than his father-in-law, and for the boundaries, he would take
care that they should be according to right and justice.
  So Pompey, leaving Armenia in the custody of Afranius, went
himself in chase of Mithridates; to do which he was forced of
necessity to march through several nations inhabiting about Mount
Caucasus. Of these the Albanians and Iberians were the two chiefest.
The Iberians stretch out as far as the Moschian mountains and the
Pontus; the Albanians lie more eastwardly, and towards the Caspian
Sea. These Albanians at first permitted Pompey, upon his request, to
pass through the country; but when winter had stolen upon the Romans
whilst they were still in the country, and they were busy
celebrating the festival of Saturn, they mustered a body of no less
than forty thousand fighting men, and set upon them, having passed
over the river Cyrnus, which rising from the mountains of Iberia,
and receiving the river Araxes in its course from Armenia,
discharges itself by twelve mouths into the Caspian. Or, according
to others, the Araxes does not fall into it, but they flow near one
another, and so discharge themselves as neighbours into the same
sea. It was in the power of Pompey to have obstructed the enemy's
passage over the river, but he suffered them to pass over quietly; and
then leading on his forces and giving battle he routed them and slew
great numbers of them in the field. The king sent ambassadors with his
submission, and Pompey upon his supplication pardoned the offence, and
making a treaty with him, he marched directly against the Iberians,
a nation no less in number than the other, but much more warlike,
and extremely desirous of gratifying Mithridates and driving out
Pompey.
  These Iberians were never subject to the Medes or Persians, and they
happened likewise to escape the dominion of the Macedonians, because
Alexander was so quick in his march through Hyrcania. But these also
Pompey subdued in a great battle, where there were slain nine thousand
upon the spot, and more than ten thousand taken prisoners. From thence
he entered into the country of Colchis, where Servilius met him by the
river Phasis, bringing the fleet with which he was guarding the
Pontus.
  The pursuit of Mithridates, who had thrown himself among the
tribes inhabiting Bosphorus and the shores of the Maeotian Sea,
presented great difficulties. News was also brought to Pompey that the
Albanians had again revolted. This made him turn back, out of anger
and determination not to be beaten by them, and with difficulty and
great danger passed back over the Cyrnus, which the barbarous people
had fortified a great way down the banks with palisadoes. And after
this, having a tedious march to make through a waterless and difficult
country, he ordered ten thousand skins to be filled with water, and so
advanced towards the enemy, whom he found drawn up in order of
battle near the river Abas, to the number of sixty thousand horse
and twelve thousand foot, ill-armed generally, and most of them
covered only with the skins of wild beasts. Their general was Cosis,
the king's brother, who, as soon as the battle was begun, singled
out Pompey, and rushing in upon him darted his javelin into the joints
of his breastplate; while Pompey, in return, struck him through the
body with his lance and slew him. It is related that in this battle
there were Amazons fighting as auxiliaries with the barbarians, and
that they came down from the mountains by the river Thermodon. For
that after the battle, when the Romans were taking the spoils and
plunder of the field, they met with several targets and buskins of the
Amazons; but no woman's body was found among the dead. They inhabit
the parts of Mount Caucasus that reach down to the Hyrcanian Sea,
not immediately bordering upon the Albanians, for the Gelae and the
Leges lie betwixt; and they keep company with these people yearly, for
two months only, near the river Thermodon; after which they retire
to their own habitations, and live alone all the rest of the year.
  After this engagement, Pompey was eager to advance with his forces
upon the Hyrcanian and Caspian Sea, but was forced to retreat at a
distance of three days' march from it by the number of venomous
serpents, and so he retreated into Armenia the Less. Whilst he was
there, the kings of the Elymaeans and Medes sent ambassadors to him,
to whom he gave friendly answer by letter; and sent against the King
of Parthia, who had made incursions upon Gordyene, and despoiled the
subjects of Tigranes, an army under the command of Afranius, who put
him to the rout, and followed him in chase as far as the district of
Arbela.
  Of the concubines of King Mithridates that were brought before
Pompey, he took none to himself, but sent them all away to their
parents and relations; most of them being either the daughters or
wives of princes and great commanders. Stratonice, however, who had
the greatest power and influence with him, and to whom he had
committed the custody of his best and richest fortress, had been, it
seems, the daughter of a musician, an old man, and of no great
fortune, and happening to sing one night before Mithridates at a
banquet, she struck his fancy so that immediately he took her with
him, and sent away the old man much dissatisfied, the king having
not so much as said one kind word to himself. But when he rose in
the morning, and saw tables in his house richly covered with gold
and silver plate, a great retinue of servants, eunuchs, and pages
bringing him rich garments, and a horse standing before the door
richly caparisoned, in all respects as was usual with the king's
favourites, he looked upon it all as a piece of mockery, and
thinking himself trifled with, attempted to make off and run away. But
the servants laying hold upon him, and informing him really that the
king had bestowed on him the house and furniture of a rich man
lately deceased, and that these were but the first fruits or
earnests of greater riches and possession that were to come, he was
persuaded at last with much difficulty to believe them. And so putting
on his purple robes, and mounting his horse, he rode through the city,
crying out, "All this is mine;" and to those at laughed at him, he
said, there was no such wonder in this, but it was a wonder rather
that he did not throw stones at all he met, he was so transported with
joy. Such was the parentage and blood of Stratonice. She now delivered
up this castle into the hands of Pompey, and offered him many presents
of great value of which he accepted only such as he thought might
serve to adorn the temples of the gods and add to the splendour of his
triumph: the rest he left to Stratonice's disposal, bidding her please
herself in the enjoyment of them.
  And in the same manner he dealt with the presents offered him by the
King of Iberia, who sent him a bedstead, table, and a chair of
state, all of gold, desiring him to accept of them; but he delivered
them all into the custody of the public treasurers, for the use of the
commonwealth.
  In another castle called Caenum, Pompey found and read with pleasure
several secret writings of Mithridates, containing much that threw
light on his character. For there were memoirs by which it appeared
that, besides others, he had made away with his son Ariarathes by
poison, as also with Alcaeus the Sardian, for having robbed him of the
first honours in a horse-race. There were several judgments upon the
interpretation of dreams, which either he himself or some of his
mistresses had had; and besides these, there was a series of wanton
letters to and from his concubine Monime. Theophanes tells us that
there was found also an address by Rutilius, in which he attempted
to exasperate him to the slaughter of all the Romans in Asia; though
most men justly conjecture this to be a malicious invention of
Theophanes, who probably hated Rutilius because he was a man in
nothing like himself; or perhaps it might be to gratify Pompey,
whose father is described by Rutilius in his history as the vilest man
alive.
  From thence Pompey came to the city of Amisus, where his passion for
glory put him into a position which might be called a punishment on
himself. For whereas he had often sharply reproached Lucullus, in that
while the enemy was still living he had taken upon him to issue
decrees, and distribute rewards and honours, as conquerors usually
do only when the war is brought to an end, yet now was he himself,
while Mithridates was paramount in the kingdom of Bosphorus, and at
the head of a powerful army, as if all were ended, just doing the same
thing, regulating the provinces, and distributing rewards, many
great commanders and princes having flocked to him, together with no
less than twelve barbarian kings; insomuch that to gratify these other
kings, when he wrote to the King of Parthia, he would not
condescend, as others used to do, in the superscription of his letter,
to give him his title of king of kings.
  Moreover, he had a great desire and emulation to occupy Syria, and
to march through Arabia to the Red Sea, that he might thus extend
his conquests every way to the great ocean that encompasses the
habitable earth; as in Africa he was the first Roman that advanced his
victories to the ocean; and again in Spain he made the Atlantic Sea
the limit of the empire: and then thirdly, in his late pursuit of
the Albanians, he had wanted but little of reaching the Hyrcanian Sea.
Accordingly he raised his camp, designing to bring the Red Sea
within the circuit of his expedition; especially as he saw how
difficult it was to hunt after Mithridates with an army, and that he
would prove a worse enemy flying than fighting. But yet he declared
that he would leave a sharper enemy behind him than himself, namely,
famine; and therefore he appointed a guard of ships to lie in wait for
the merchants that sailed to Bosphorus, death being the penalty for
any who should attempt to carry provisions thither.
  Then he set forward with the greatest part of his army, and in his
march casually fell in with several dead bodies, still uninterred,
of those soldiers who were slain with Triarius in his unfortunate
engagement with Mithridates: these he buried splendidly and
honourably. The neglect of whom, it is thought, caused, as much as
anything, the hatred that was felt against Lucullus, and alienated the
affections of the soldiers from him. Pompey having now by his forces
under the command of Afranius subdued the Arabians about the
mountain Amanus, himself entered Syria, and finding it destitute of
any natural and lawful prince, reduced it into the form of a province,
as a possession of the people of Rome. He conquered also Judaea, and
took its king, Aristobulus, captive. Some cities he built anew, and to
others he gave their liberty, chastising their tyrants. Most part of
the time that he spent there was employed in the administration of
justice, in deciding controversies of kings and states; and where he
himself could not be present in person, he gave commissions to his
friends, and sent them. Thus when there arose a difference betwixt the
Armenians and Parthians about some territory, and the judgment was
referred to him, he gave a power by commission, to three judges and
arbiters to hear and determine the controversy. For the reputation
of his power was great; nor was the fame of his justice and clemency
inferior to that of his power, and served indeed as a veil for a
multitude of faults committed by his friends and familiars. For
although it was not in his nature to check or chastise wrongdoers, yet
he himself always treated those that had to do with him in such a
manner that they submitted to endure with patience the acts of
covetousness and oppression done by others.
  Among these friends of his there was one Demetrius, who had the
greatest influence with him of all; he was a freed slave, a youth of
good understanding, but somewhat too insolent in his good fortune,
of whom there goes this story. Cato, the philosopher, being as yet a
very young man, but of great repute and a noble mind, took a journey
of pleasure to Antioch, at a time when Pompey was not there, having
a great desire to see the city. He, as his custom was, walked on foot,
and his friends accompanied him on horseback; and seeing before the
gates of the city a multitude dressed in white, the young men on one
side of the road and the boys on the other, he was somewhat offended
at it, imagining that it was officiously done in honour of him,
which was more than he had any wish for. However, he desired his
companions to alight and walk with him; but when they drew near, the
master of the ceremonies in this procession came out with a garland
and a rod in his hand and met them, inquiring where they had left
Demetrius, and when he would come? Upon which Cato's companions
burst out into laughter, but Cato said only, "Alas, poor city!" and
passed by without any other answer. However, Pompey rendered Demetrius
less odious to others by enduring his presumption and impertinence
to himself. For it is reported how that Pompey, when he had invited
his friends to an entertainment, would be very ceremonious in
waiting till they all came and were placed, while Demetrius would be
already stretched upon the couch as if he cared for no one, with his
dress over his ears, hanging down from his head. Before his return
into Italy, he had purchased the pleasantest country-seat about
Rome, with the finest walks and places for exercise, and there were
sumptuous gardens, called by the name of Demetrius, while Pompey his
master, up to his third triumph, was contented with an ordinary and
simple habitation. Afterwards, it is true, when he had erected his
famous and stately theatre for the people of Rome, he built as a
sort of appendix to it a house for himself, much more splendid than
his former, and yet no object even this to excite men's envy, since he
who came to be master of it after Pompey could not but express
wonder and inquire where Pompey the Great used to sup. Such is the
story told us.
  The king of the Arabs near Petra, who had hitherto despised the
power of the Romans, now began to be in great alarm at it, and sent
letters to him promising to be at his commands, and to do whatever
he should see fit to order. However, Pompey having a desire to confirm
and keep him in the same mind, marched forwards for Petra, an
expedition not altogether irreprehensible in the opinion of many;
who thought it a mere running away from their proper duty, the pursuit
of Mithridates, Rome's ancient and inveterate enemy, who was now
rekindling the war once more, and taking preparations, it was
reported, to lead his army through Scythia and Paeonia into Italy.
Pompey, on the other side, judging it easier to destroy his forces
in battle than to seize his person in flight, resolved not to tire
himself out in a vain pursuit, but rather to spend his leisure upon
another enemy, as a sort of digression in the meanwhile. But fortune
resolved the doubt, for when he was now not far from Petra, and had
pitched his tents and encamped for that day, as he was taking exercise
with his horse outside the camp, couriers came riding up from
Pontus, bringing good news, as was known at once by the heads of their
javelins, which it is the custom to carry crowned with branches of
laurel. The soldiers, as soon as they saw them, flocked immediately to
Pompey, who, notwithstanding, was minded to finish his exercise; but
when they began to be clamorous and importunate, he alighted from
his horse, and taking the letters went before them into the camp.
  Now there being no tribunal erected there, not even that military
substitute for one which they make by cutting up thick turfs of earth,
and piling them one upon another, they, through eagerness and
impatience, heaped up a pile of pack-saddles, and Pompey standing upon
that, told them the news of Mithridates's death, how that he had
himself put an end to his life upon the revolt of his son Pharnaces,
and that Pharnaces had taken all things there into his hands and
possession, which he did, his letters said, in right of himself and
the Romans. Upon this news the whole army, expressing their joy, as
was to be expected, fell to sacrificing to the gods, and feasting as
if in the person of Mithridates alone there had died many thousands of
their enemies.
  Pompey by this event having brought this war to its completion, with
much more ease than was expected, departed forthwith out of Arabia,
and passing rapidly through the intermediate provinces, he came at
length to the city Amisus. There he received many presents brought
from Pharnaces, with several dead bodies of the royal blood, and the
corpse of Mithridates himself, which was not easy to be known by the
face, for the physicians that embalmed him had not dried up his brain,
but those who were curious to see him knew him by the scars there.
Pompey himself would not endure to see him, but to deprecate the
divine jealousy sent it away to the city of Sinope. He admired the
richness of his robes no less than the size and splendour of his
armour. His sword-belt, however, which had cost four hundred
talents, was stolen by Publius, and sold to Ariarathes; his tiara
also, a piece of admirable workmanship, Gaius, the foster-brother of
Mithridates, gave secretly to Faustus, the son of Sylla, at his
request. All which Pompey was ignorant of, but afterwards, when
Pharnaces came to understand it, he severely punished those that
embezzled them.
  Pompey now having ordered all things, and established that province,
took his journey homewards in greater pomp and with more festivity.
For when he came to Mitylene, he gave the city their freedom upon
the intercession of Theophanes, and was present at the contest,
there periodically held, of the poets, who took at that time no
other theme or subject than the actions of Pompey. He was extremely
pleased with the theatre itself, and had a model of it taken,
intending to erect one in Rome on the same design, but larger and more
magnificent. When he came to Rhodes, he attended the lectures of all
the philosophers there, and gave to every one of them a talent.
Posidonius has published the disputation which he held before him
against Hermagoras the rhetorician, upon the subject of invention in
general. At Athens, also, he showed similar munificence to the
philosophers, and gave fifty talents towards the repairing and
beautifying the city. So that now by all these acts he well hoped to
return into Italy in the greatest splendour and glory possible to man,
and find family as desirous to see him as he felt himself to come home
to them. But that supernatural agency, whose province and charge it is
always to mix some ingredient of evil with the greatest and most
glorious goods of fortune, had for some time back been busy in his
household, preparing him a sad welcome. For Mucia during his absence
had dishonoured his bed. Whilst he was abroad at a distance he had
refused all credence to the report; but when he drew nearer to
Italy, where his thoughts were more at leisure to give consideration
to the charge, he sent her a bill of divorce; but neither then in
writing, nor afterwards by word of mouth, did he ever give a reason
why he discharged her; the cause of it is mentioned in Cicero's
epistles.
  Rumours of every kind were scattered abroad about Pompey, and were
carried to Rome before him, so that there was a great tumult and stir,
as if he designed forthwith to march with his army into the city and
establish himself securely as sole ruler. Crassus withdrew himself,
together with his children and property, out of the city, either
that he was really afraid, either that he counterfeited rather, as
is most probable, to give credit to the calumny and exasperate the
jealousy of the people. Pompey, therefore, as soon as he entered
Italy, called a general muster of the army; and having made a suitable
address and exchanged a kind farewell with his soldiers, he
commanded them to depart every man to his country and place of
habitation, only taking care that they should not fail to meet again
at his triumph. Thus the army being disbanded, and the news commonly
reported, a wonderful result ensued. For when the cities saw Pompey
the Great passing through the country unarmed, and with a small
train of familiar friends only, as if he was returning from a
journey of pleasure, not from his conquests, they came pouring out
to display their affection for him, attending and conducting him to
Rome with far greater forces than he disbanded; insomuch that if he
had designed any movement or innovation in the state, he might have
done it without his army.
  Now, because the law permitted no commander to enter into the city
before his triumph, he sent to the senate, entreating them as a favour
to him to prorogue the election of consuls, that thus he might be able
to attend and give countenance to Piso, one of the candidates. The
request was resisted by Cato, and met with a refusal. However,
Pompey could not but admire the liberty and boldness of speech which
Cato alone had dared to use in the maintenance of law and justice.
He therefore had a great desire to win him over, and purchase his
friendship at any rate; and to that end, Cato having two nieces,
Pompey asked for one in marriage for himself, the other for his son.
But Cato looked unfavourably on the proposal, regarding it as a design
for undermining his honesty, and in a manner bribing him by a family
alliance; much to the displeasure of his wife and sister, who were
indignant that he should reject a connection with Pompey the Great.
About that time Pompey having a design of setting up Afranius for
the consulship, gave a sum of money among the tribes for their
votes, and people came and received it in his own gardens, a
proceeding which, when it came to be generally known, excited great
disapprobation, that he should thus, for the sake of men who could not
obtain the honour by their own merits, make merchandise of an office
which had been given to himself as the highest reward of his services.
"Now," said Cato, to his wife and sister, "had we contracted an
alliance with Pompey, we had been allied to this dishonour too; and
this they could not but acknowledge, and allow his judgment of what
was right and fitting to have been wiser and better than theirs.
  The splendour and magnificence of Pompey's triumph was such that
though it took up the space of two days, yet they were extremely
straitened in time, so that of what was prepared for that pageantry,
there was as much withdrawn as would have set out and adorned
another triumph. In the first place, there were tables carried,
inscribed with the names and titles of the nations over whom he
triumphed, Pontus, Armenia, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, Media, Colchis,
the Iberians, the Albanians, Syria, Cilicia, and Mesopotamia, together
with Phoenicia and Palestine, Judaea, Arabia, and all the power of the
pirates subdued by sea and land. And in these different countries
there appeared the capture of no less than one thousand fortified
places, nor much less than nine hundred cities, together with eight
hundred ships of the pirates, and the foundation of thirty-nine towns.
Besides, there was set forth in these tables an account of all the
tributes throughout the empire, and how that before these conquests
the revenue amounted but to fifty millions, whereas from his
acquisitions they had a revenue of eighty-five millions; and that in
present payment he was bringing into the common treasury ready
money, and gold and silver plate, and ornaments, to the value of
twenty thousand talents, over and above what had been distributed
among the soldiers, of whom he that had least had fifteen hundred
drachmas for his share. The prisoners of war that were led in triumph,
besides the chief pirates, were the son of Tigranes, King of Armenia
with his wife and daughter; as also Zosime, wife of King Tigranes
himself, and Aristobulus, King of Judaea, the sister of King
Mithridates, and her five sons, and some Scythian women. There were
likewise the hostages of the Albanians and Iberians, and of the King
of Commagene, besides a vast number of trophies, one for every
battle in which he was conqueror, either himself in person or by his
lieutenants. But that which seemed to be his greatest glory, being one
which no other Roman ever attained to, was this, that he made his
third triumph over the third division of the world. For others among
the Romans had the honour of triumphing thrice, but his first
triumph was over Africa, his second over Europe, and this last over
Asia; so that he seemed in these three triumphs to have led the
whole world captive.
  As for his age, those who affect to make the parallel exact in all
things betwixt him and Alexander the Great, do not allow him to have
been quite thirty-four, whereas in truth at that time he was near
forty. And well had it been for him had he terminated his life at this
date, while he still enjoyed Alexander's fortune, since all his
after-time served only either to bring him prosperity that made him
odious, or calamities too great to be retrieved. For that great
authority which he had gained in the city by his merits he made use of
only in patronizing the iniquities of others, so that by advancing
their fortunes he detracted from his own glory, till at last he was
overthrown even by the force and greatness of his own power. And as
the strongest citadel or fort in a town, when it is taken by an enemy,
does then afford the same strength to the foe as it had done to
friends before, so Caesar, after Pompey's aid had made him strong
enough to defy his country, ruined and overthrew at last the power
which had availed him against the rest. The course of things was as
follows. Lucullus, when he returned out of Asia, where he had been
treated with insult by Pompey, was received by the senate with great
honour, which was yet increased when Pompey came home; to check
whose ambition they encourage him to assume the administration of
the government, whereas he was now grown cold and disinclined to
business, having given himself over to the pleasures of ease and the
enjoyment of a splendid fortune. However, he began for the time to
exert himself against Pompey, attacked him sharply, and succeeded in
having his own acts and decrees, which were repealed by Pompey,
re-established, and, with the assistance of Cato, gained the
superiority in the senate.
  Pompey having fallen from his hopes in such an unworthy repulse, was
forced to fly to the tribunes of the people for refuge, and to
attach himself to the young men, among whom was Clodius, the vilest
and most impudent wretch alive, who took him about, and exposed him as
a tool to the people, carrying him up and down among the throngs in
the market-place, to countenance those laws and speeches which he made
to cajole the people and ingratiate himself. And at last, for his
reward, he demanded Pompey, as if he had not disgraced, but done him a
great kindness, that he should forsake (as in the end he did
forsake) Cicero, his friend, who on many public occasions had done him
the greatest service. And so when Cicero was in danger, and implored
his aid, he would not admit him into his presence, but shutting up his
gates against those that came to mediate for him, slipt out at a
back door, whereupon Cicero, fearing the result of his trial, departed
privately from Rome.
  About that time Caesar, returning from military service, started a
course of policy which brought him great present favour, and much
increased his power for the future, and proved extremely destructive
both to Pompey and the commonwealth. For now he stood candidate for
his first consulship, and well observing the enmity betwixt Pompey and
Crassus, and finding that by joining with one he should make the other
his enemy, he endeavoured by all means to reconcile them, an object in
itself honourable and tending to the public good, but, as he undertook
it, a mischievous and subtle intrigue. For he well knew that
opposite parties or factions in a commonwealth, like passengers in a
boat, serve to trim and balance the unsteady motions of power there;
whereas if they combine and come all over to one side, they cause a
shock which will be sure to overset the vessel and carry down
everything. And therefore Cato wisely told those who charged all the
calamities of Rome upon the disagreement betwixt Pompey and Caesar
that they were in error in charging all the crime upon the last cause;
for it was not their discord and enmity, but their unanimity and
friendship, that gave the first and greatest blow to the commonwealth.
  Caesar being thus elected consul, began at once to make an
interest with the poor and meaner sort, by preferring and establishing
laws for planting colonies and dividing lands, lowering the dignity of
his office, and turning his consulship into a sort of tribuneship
rather. And when Bibulus, his colleague, opposed him, and Cato was
prepared to second Bibulus, and assist him vigorously, Caesar
brought Pompey upon the hustings, and addressing him in the sight of
the people, demanded his opinion upon the laws that were proposed.
Pompey gave his approbation. "Then," said Caesar, "in case any man
should offer violence to these laws, will you be ready to give
assistance to the people?" "Yes," replied Pompey, "I shall be ready,
and against those that threaten the sword, I will appear with sword
and buckler." Nothing ever was said or done by Pompey up to that day
that seemed more insolent or overbearing; so that his friends
endeavoured to apologize for it as a word spoken inadvertently; but by
his actions afterwards it appeared plainly that he was totally devoted
to Caesar's service. For on a sudden, contrary to all expectation,
he married Julian, the daughter of Caesar, who had been affianced
before and was to be married within a few days to Caepio. And to
appease Caepio's wrath, he gave him his own daughter in marriage,
who had been espoused before to Faustus, the son of Sylla. Caesar
himself married Calpurnia, the daughter of Piso.
  Upon this Pompey, filling the city with soldiers, carried all things
by force as he pleased. As Bibulus, the consul, was going to the
forum, accompanied by Lucullus and Cato, they fell upon him on a
sudden and broke his rods; and somebody threw a vessel of ordure
upon the head of Bibulus himself; and two tribunes of the people,
who escorted him, were desperately wounded in the fray. And thus
having cleared the forum of all their adversaries, they got their bill
for the division of lands established and passed into an act; and
not only so, but the whole populace, being taken with this bait,
became totally at their devotion, inquiring into nothing and without a
word giving their suffrages to whatever they propounded. Thus they
confirmed all those acts and decrees of Pompey which were questioned
and contested by Lucullus; and to Caesar they granted the provinces of
Gaul, both within and without the Alps, together with Illyricum, for
five years, and likewise an army of four entire legions; then they
created consuls for the year ensuing, Piso, the father-in-law of
Caesar, and Gabinius, the most extravagant of Pompey's flatterers.
  During all these transactions, Bibulus kept close within doors,
nor did he appear publicly in person for the space of eight months
together, notwithstanding he was consul, but sent out proclamations
full of bitter invectives and accusations against them both. Cato
turned prophet, and as if he had been possessed with a spirit of
divination, did nothing else in the senate but foretell what evils
should befall the commonwealth and Pompey. Lucullus pleaded old age,
and retired to take his ease, as superannuated for all airs of
state; which gave occasion to the saving of Pompey, that the
fatigues of luxury were not more seasonable for an old man than
those of government. Which in truth proved a reflection upon himself
for he not long after let his fondness for his young wife seduce him
also into effeminate habits. He gave all his time to her, and passed
his days in her company in country-houses and gardens, paying no
heed to what was going on in the forum. Insomuch that Clodius, who was
then tribune of the people began to despise him, and engage in the
most audacious attempts. For when he had banished Cicero, and sent
away Cato into Cyprus under pretence of military duty, and when Caesar
was gone upon his expedition to Gaul, finding the populace now looking
to him as the leader who did everything according to their pleasure,
he attempted forthwith to repeal some of Pompey's decrees; he took
Tigranes, the captive, out of prison, and kept him about him as his
companion; and commenced actions against several of Pompey's
friends, thus designing to try the extent of his power. At last,
upon a time when Pompey was present at the hearing of a certain cause,
Clodius, accompanied with a crowd of profligate and impudent ruffians,
standing up in a place above the rest, put questions to the populace
as follows: "Who is the dissolute general? who is the man that seeks
another man? who scratches his head with one finger?" and the
rabble, upon the signal of his shaking his gown, with a great shout to
every question, like singers making responses in a chorus, made
answer, "Pompey."
  This indeed was no small annoyance to Pompey, who was quite
unaccustomed to hear anything ill of himself, and unexperienced
altogether in such encounters; and he was yet more vexed when he saw
that the senate rejoiced at this foul usage, and regarded it as a just
punishment upon him for his treachery to Cicero. But when it came even
to blows and wounds in the forum, and that one of Clodius's
bond-slaves was apprehended creeping through the crowd towards
Pompey with a sword in his hand, Pompey laid hold of this pretence,
though perhaps otherwise apprehensive of Clodius's insolence and bad
language, and never appeared again in the forum during all the time he
was tribune, but kept close at home, and passed his time in consulting
with his friends by what means he might best allay the displeasure
of the senate and nobles against him. Among other expedients, Culleo
advised the divorce of Julian, and to abandon Caesar's friendship to
gain that of the senate; this he would not hearken to. Others again
advised him to call home Cicero from banishment, a man who was
always the great adversary of Clodius, and as great a favourite of the
senate; to this he was easily persuaded. And therefore he brought
Cicero's brother into the forum, attended with a strong party, to
petition for his return; where, after a warm dispute, in which several
were wounded and some slain, he got the victory over Clodius.
  No sooner was Cicero returned home upon this decree, but immediately
he used his efforts to reconcile the senate to Pompey; and by speaking
in favour of the law upon the importations of corn, did again, in
effect, make Pompey sovereign lord of all the Roman possessions by sea
and land. For by that law there were placed under his control all
ports, markets, and storehouses, and, in short, all the concerns
both of the merchants and the husbandmen; which gave occasion to the
charge brought against it by Clodius, what the law was not made
because of the scarcity of corn, but the scarcity of corn was made
that they might pass a law, whereby that power of his, which was now
grown feeble and consumptive, might be revived again, and Pompey
reinstated in a new empire. Others look upon it as a politic device of
Spinther, the consul, whose design it was to secure Pompey in a
greater authority, that he himself might be sent in assistance to King
Ptolemy. However, it is certain that Canidius, the tribune,
preferred a law to despatch Pompey in the character of an
ambassador, without an army, attended only with two lictors, as a
mediator betwixt the king and his subjects of Alexandria.
  Neither did this proposal seem unacceptable to Pompey, though the
senate cast it out upon the specious pretence that they were unwilling
to hazard his person. However, there were found several writings
scattered about the forum and near the senate-house intimating how
grateful it would be to Ptolemy to have Pompey appointed for his
general instead of Spinther. And Timagenes even asserts that Ptolemy
went away and left Egypt, not out of necessity, but purely upon the
persuasion of Theophanes, who was anxious to give Pompey the
opportunity for holding a new command and gaining further wealth.
But Theophanes's want of honesty does not go so far to make this story
credible as does Pompey's own nature, which was averse, with all its
ambition, to such base and disingenuous acts, to render it improbable.
  Thus Pompey, being appointed chief purveyor, and having within his
administration and management all the corn trade, sent abroad his
factors and agents into all quarters, and he himself sailing into
Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa, collected vast stores of corn. He was
just ready to set sail upon his voyage home, when a great storm
arose upon the sea, and the ships' commanders doubted whether it
were safe. Upon which Pompey himself went first aboard, and bid the
mariners weigh anchor, declaring with a loud voice that there was a
necessity to sail, but no necessity to live. So that with this
spirit and courage, and having met with favourable fortune, he made
a prosperous return, and filled the markets with corn, and the sea
with ships. So much so that this great plenty and abundance of
provisions yielded a sufficient supply, not only to the city of
Rome, but even to other places too, dispersing itself, like waters
from a spring, into all quarters.
  Meantime Caesar grew great and famous with his wars in Gaul, and
while in appearance he seemed far distant from Rome, entangled in
the affairs of the Belgians, Suevians, and Britons, in truth he was
working craftily by secret practices in the midst of the people, and
countermining Pompey in all political matters of most importance. He
himself, with his army close about him, as if it had been his own
body, not with mere views of conquest over the barbarians, but as
though his contests with them were but mere sports and exercises of
the chase, did his utmost with this training and discipline to make it
invincible and alarming. In the meantime his gold and silver and other
spoils and treasure which he took from the enemy in his conquests,
he sent to Rome in presents, tempting people with his gifts, and
aiding aediles, praetors, and consuls, as also their wives, in their
expenses, and thus purchasing himself numerous friends. Insomuch, that
when he passed back again over the Alps, and took up his winter
quarters in the city of Luca, there flocked to him an infinite
number of men and women, striving who should get first to him, two
hundred senators included, among whom were Pompey and Crassus; so that
there were to be seen at once before Caesar's door no less than six
score rods of proconsuls and praetors. The rest of his addressers he
sent all away full fraught with hopes and money; but with Crassus
and Pompey he entered into special articles of agreement, that they
should stand candidates for the consulship next year; that Caesar on
his part should send a number of his soldiers to give their votes at
the election; that as soon as they were elected, they should use their
interest to have the command of some provinces and legions assigned to
themselves, and that Caesar should have his present charge confirmed
to him for five years more. When these arrangements came to be
generally known, great indignation was excited among the chief men
in Rome; and Marcellinus, in an open assembly of the people,
demanded of them both, whether they designed to sue for the consulship
or no. And being urged by the people for their answer, Pompey spoke
first, and told them, perhaps he would sue for it, perhaps he would
not. Crassus was more temperate, and said, that he would do what
should be judged most agreeable with the interest of the commonwealth;
and when Marcellinus persisted in his attack on Pompey, and spoke,
as it was thought, with some vehemence, Pompey remarked that
Marcellinus was certainly the unfairest of men, to show him no
gratitude for having thus made him an orator out of a mute, and
converted him from a hungry starveling into a man so full-fed that
he could not contain himself.
  Most of the candidates nevertheless abandoned their canvass for
the consulship; Cato alone persuaded and encouraged Lucius Domitius
not to desist, "since," said he, "the contest now is not for office,
but for liberty against tyrants and usurpers." Therefore those of
Pompey's party, fearing this inflexible constancy in Cato, by which he
kept with him the whole senate, lest by this he should likewise
pervert and draw after him all the well-affected part of the
commonalty, resolved to withstand Domitius at once, and to prevent his
entrance into the forum. To this end, therefore, they sent in a band
of armed men, who slew the torchbearer of Domitius, as he was
leading the way before him, and put all the rest to flight; last of
all, Cato himself retired, having received a wound in his right arm
while defending Domitius. Thus by these means and practices they
obtained the consulship; neither did they behave themselves with
more decency in their further proceedings; but in the first place,
when the people were choosing Cato praetor, and just ready with
their votes for the poll, Pompey broke up the assembly, upon a pretext
of some inauspicious appearance, and having gained the tribes by
money, they publicly proclaimed Vatinius praetor. Then, in pursuance
of their covenants with Caesar, they introduced several laws by
Trebonius, the tribune, continuing Caesar's commission to another five
years' charge of his province; to Crassus there were appointed Syria
and the Parthian war; and to Pompey himself, all Africa, together with
both Spains, and four legions of soldiers, two of which he lent to
Caesar upon his request for the wars in Gaul.
  Crassus, upon the expiration of his consulship, departed forthwith
into his province; but Pompey spent some time in Rome, upon the
opening or dedication of his theatre, where he treated the people with
all sorts of games, shows, and exercises, in gymnastics alike and in
music. There was likewise the hunting or baiting of wild beasts, and
combats with them, in which five hundred lions were slain; but above
all, the battle of elephants was a spectacle full of horror and
amazement.
  These entertainments brought him great honour and popularity; but on
the other side he created no less envy to himself, in that he
committed the government of his provinces and legions into the hands
of friends as his lieutenants, whilst he himself was going about and
spending his time with his wife in all the places of amusement in
Italy; whether it were he was so fond of her himself, or she so fond
of him, and he unable to distress her by going away, for this also
is stated. And the love displayed by this young wife for her elderly
husband was a matter of general note, to be attributed, it would seem,
to his constancy in married life, and to his dignity of manner,
which in familiar intercourse was tempered with grace and
gentleness, and was particularly attractive to women, as even Flora,
the courtesan, may be thought good enough evidence to prove.
  It once happened in a public assembly, as they were at an election
of the aediles, that the people came to blows, and several about
Pompey were slain, so that he, finding himself all bloody, ordered a
change of apparel; but the servants who brought home his clothes,
making a great bustle and hurry about the house, it chanced that the
young lady, who was then with child, saw his gown all stained with
blood; upon which she dropped immediately into a swoon, and was hardly
brought to life again; however, what with her fright and suffering,
she fell into labour and miscarried; even those who chiefly censured
Pompey for his friendship to Caesar could not reprove him for his
affection to so attached a wife. Afterwards she was great again, and
brought to bed of a daughter, but died in childbed; neither did the
infant outlive her mother many days. Pompey had prepared all things
for the interment of her corpse at his house near Alba, but the people
seized upon it by force, and performed the solemnities in the field of
Mars, rather in compassion for the young lady, than in favour either
for Pompey or Caesar; and yet of these two, the people seemed at
that time to pay Caesar a greater share of honour in his absence, than
to Pompey, though he was present.
  For the city now at once began to roll and swell, so to say, with
the stir of the coming storm. Things everywhere were in a state of
agitation, and everybody's discourse tended to division, now that
death had put an end to that relation which hitherto had been a
disguise rather than restraint to the ambition of these men.
Besides, not long after came messengers from Parthia with intelligence
of the death of Crassus there, by which another safeguard against
civil war was removed, since both Caesar and Pompey kept their eyes on
Crassus, and awe of him held them together more or less within the
bounds of fair-dealing all his lifetime. But when fortune had taken
away this second, whose province it might have been to revenge the
quarrel of the conquered, you might then say with the comic poet-

         "The combatants are waiting to begin,
          Smearing their hands with dust and oiling each his skin."

So inconsiderable a thing is fortune in respect of human nature, and
so insufficient to give content to a covetous mind, that an empire
of that mighty extent and sway could not satisfy the ambition of two
men; and though they knew and had read, that-

         "The gods, when they divided out 'twixt three,
          This massive universe, heaven, hell, and sea,
          Each one sat down contented on his throne,
          And undisturbed each god enjoys his own,"

yet they thought the whole Roman empire not sufficient to contain
them, though they were but two.
  Pompey once in an oration to the people told them that he had always
come into office before he expected he should, and that he had
always left it sooner than they expected he would; and, indeed, the
disbanding of all his armies witnessed as much. Yet when he
perceived that Caesar would not so willingly discharge his forces,
he endeavoured to strengthen himself against him by offices and
commands in the city; but beyond this he showed no desire for any
change, and would not seem to distrust, but rather to disregard and
contemn him. And when he saw how they bestowed the places of
government quite contrary to his wishes, because the citizens were
bribed in their elections, he let things take their course, and
allowed the city to be left without any government at all. Hereupon
there was mention straightway made of appointing a dictator. Lucullus,
a tribune of the people, was the man who first adventured to propose
it, urging the people to make Pompey dictator. But the tribune was
in danger of being turned out of his office by the opposition that
Cato made against it. And for Pompey, many of his friends appeared and
excused him, alleging that he never was desirous of that government,
neither would he accept of it. When Cato therefore made a speech in
commendation of Pompey and exhorted him to support the cause of good
order in the commonwealth, he could not for shame but yield to it, and
so for the present Domitius and Messala were elected consuls. But
shortly afterwards, when there was another anarchy, or vacancy in
the government, and the talk of a dictator was much louder and more
general than before, those of Cato's party, fearing lest they should
be forced to appoint Pompey, thought it policy to keep him from that
arbitrary and tyrannical power by giving him an office of more legal
authority. Bibulus himself, who was Pompey's enemy, first gave his
vote in the senate, that Pompey should be created consul alone;
alleging, that by these means either the commonwealth would be freed
from its present confusion, or that its bondage should be lessened
by serving the worthiest. This was looked upon as a very strange
opinion, considering the man that spoke it; and therefore on Cato's
standing up, everybody expected that he would have opposed it; but
after silence made, he said that he would never have been the author
of that advice himself, but since it was propounded by another, his
advice was to follow it, adding, that any form of government was
better than none at all; and that in a time so full of distraction, he
thought no man fitter to govern than Pompey. This counsel was
unanimously approved of, and a decree passed that Pompey should be
made sole consul, with this clause, that if he thought it necessary to
have a colleague, he might choose whom he pleased, provided it were
not till after two months expired.
  Thus was Pompey created and declared sole consul by Sulpicius,
regent in this vacancy; upon which he made very cordial
acknowledgments to Cato, professing himself much his debtor, and
requesting his good advice in conducting the government; to this
Cato replied, that Pompey had no reason to thank him, for all that
he had said was for the service of the commonwealth, not of Pompey;
but that he would be always ready to give his advice privately, if
he were asked for it; and if not, he should not fail to say what he
thought in public. Such was Cato's conduct on all occasions.
  On his return into the city Pompey married Cornelia, the daughter of
Metellus Scipio, not a maiden, but lately left a widow by Publius, the
son of Crassus, her first husband, who had been killed in Parthia. The
young lady had other attractions besides those of youth and beauty;
for she was highly educated, played well upon the lute, and understood
geometry, and had been accustomed to listen with profit to lectures on
philosophy; all this, too, without in any degree becoming unamiable or
pretentious, as sometimes young women do when they pursue such
studies. Nor could any fault be found either with her father's
family or reputation. The disparity of their ages was, however, not
liked by everybody; Cornelia being in this respect a fitter match
for Pompey's son. And wiser judges thought it rather a slight upon the
commonwealth when he, to whom alone they had committed their broken
fortunes, and from whom alone, as from their physician, they
expected a cure to these distractions, went about crowned with
garlands and celebrating his nuptial feasts, never considering that
his very consulship was a public calamity, which would never have been
given him, contrary to the rules of law, had his country been in a
flourishing state. Afterwards, however, he took cognizance of the
cases of those that had obtained offices by gifts and bribery, and
enacted laws and ordinances, setting forth the rules of judgment by
which they should be arraigned; and regulating all things with gravity
and justice, he restored security, order, and silence to their
courts of judicature, himself giving his presence there with a band of
soldiers. But when his father-in-law, Scipio, was accused, he sent for
the three hundred and sixty judges to his house, and entreated them to
be favourable to him; whereupon his accuser, seeing Scipio come into
the court, accompanied by the judges themselves, withdrew the
prosecution. Upon this Pompey was very ill spoken of, and much worse
in the case of Plancus; for whereas he himself had made a law
putting a stop to the practice of making speeches in praise of persons
under trial, yet notwithstanding this prohibition, he came into
court and spoke openly in commendation of Plancus, insomuch that Cato,
who happened to be one of the judges at that time, stopping his ears
with his hands, told him he could not in conscience listen to
commendations contrary to law. Cato upon this was refused, and set
aside from being a judge, before sentence was given, but Plancus was
condemned by the rest of the judges, to Pompey's dishonour. Shortly
after, Hypsaeus, a man of consular dignity, who was under
accusation, waited for Pompey's return from his bath to his supper,
and falling down at his feet, implored his favour; but he disdainfully
passed him by, saying, that he did nothing else but spoil his
supper. Such partiality was looked upon as a great fault in Pompey and
highly condemned; however, he managed all things else discreetly,
and having put the government in very good order, he chose his
father-in-law to be his colleague in the consulship for the last
five months. His provinces were continued to him for the term of
four years longer, with a commission to take one thousand talents
yearly out of the treasury for the payment of his army.
  This gave occasion to some of Caesar's friends to think it
reasonable, that some consideration should be had of him too, who
had done such signal services in war and fought so many battles for
the empire, alleging, that he deserved at least a second consulship,
or to have the government of his province continued, that so he
might command and enjoy in peace what he had obtained in war, and no
successor come in to reap the fruits of his labour and carry off the
glory of his actions. There arising some debate about this matter,
Pompey took upon him, as it were out of kindness to Caesar, to plead
his cause, and allay any jealousy that was conceived against him,
telling them that he had letters from Caesar, expressing his desire
for a successor, and his own discharge from the command; but it
would be only right that they should give him leave to stand for the
consulship though in his absence. But those of Cato's party
withstood this, saying, that if he expected any favour from the
citizens, he ought to leave his army and come in a private capacity to
canvass for it. And Pompey's making no rejoinder, but letting it
pass as a matter in which he was overruled, increased the suspicion of
his real feelings towards Caesar. Presently, also, under pretence of a
war with Parthia, he sent for his two legions which he had lent him.
However, Caesar, though he well knew why they were asked for, sent
them home very liberally rewarded.
  About that time Pompey recovered of a dangerous fit of sickness
which seized him at Naples, where the whole city, upon the
suggestion of Praxagoras, made sacrifices of thanksgiving to the
gods for his recovery. The neighbouring towns likewise happening to
follow their example, the thing then went its course throughout all
Italy, so that there was not a city, either great or small, that did
not feast and rejoice for many days together. And the company of those
that came from all parts to meet him was so numerous that no place was
able to contain them, but the villages, seaport towns, and the very
highways were all full of people, feasting and sacrificing to the
gods. Nay, many went to meet him with garlands on their heads, and
flambeaux in their hands, casting flowers and nosegays upon him as
he went along; so that this progress of his, and reception, was one of
the noblest and most glorious sights imaginable. And yet it is thought
that this very thing was not one of the least causes and occasions
of the civil war. For Pompey, yielding to a feeling of exultation,
which in the greatness of the present display of joy lost sight of
more solid grounds of consideration, and abandoning that prudent
temper which had guided him hitherto to a safe use of all his good
fortune and his successes, gave himself up to an extravagant
confidence in his own contempt of Caesar's power; insomuch that he
thought neither force of arms nor care necessary against him, but that
he could pull him down much easier than he had set him up. Besides
this, Appius, under whose command those legions which Pompey lent to
Caesar were returned, coming lately out of Gaul, spoke slightingly
of Caesar's actions there, and spread scandalous reports about him, at
the same time telling Pompey that he was unacquainted with his own
strength and reputation if he made use of any other forces against
Caesar than Caesar's own; for such was the soldiers' hatred to Caesar,
and their love to Pompey so great, that they would all come over to
him upon his first appearance. By these flatteries Pompey was so
puffed up, and led on into such a careless security, that he could not
choose but laugh at those who seemed to fear a war; and when some were
saying, that if Caesar should march against the city, they could not
see what forces there were to resist him, he replied with a smile,
bidding them be in no concern, "for," said he, "whenever I stamp
with my foot in any part of Italy there will rise up forces enough
in an instant, both horse and foot."
  Caesar, on the other side, was more and more vigorous in his
proceedings, himself always at hand about the frontiers of Italy,
and sending his soldiers continually into the city to attend all
elections with their votes. Besides, he corrupted several of the
magistrates, and kept them in his pay; among others, Paulus, the
consul, who was brought over by a bribe of one thousand and five
hundred talents; and Curio, tribune of the people, by a discharge of
the debts with which he was overwhelmed; together with Mark Antony,
who, out of friendship to Curio, had become bound with him in the same
obligations for them all. And it was stated as a fact, that a
centurion of Caesar's, waiting at the senate-house, and hearing that
the senate refused to give him a longer term of his government,
clapped his hand upon his sword, and said, "But this shall give it."
And indeed all his practices and preparations seemed to bear this
appearance. Curio's demands, however, and requests in favour of
Caesar, were more popular in appearance; for he desired one of these
two things, either that Pompey also should be called upon to resign
his army, or that Caesar should not be taken away from him; for if
both of them became private persons, both would be satisfied with
simple justice; or if both retained their present power, each being
a match for the other, they would be contented with what they
already had; but he that weakens one, does at the same time strengthen
the other, and so doubles that very strength and power which he
stood in fear of before.
  Marcellus, the consul, replied nothing to all this, but that
Caesar was a robber, and should be proclaimed an enemy to the state if
he did not disband his army. However, Curio, with the assistance of
Antony and Piso, prevailed, that the matter in debate should be put to
the question, and decided by those to withdraw who were of opinion
that Caesar only should lay down his army, and Pompey command, the
majority withdrew. But when it was ordered again for those to withdraw
whose vote was that both should lay down their arms, and neither
command, there were but twenty-two for Pompey, all the rest remained
on Curio's side. Whereupon he, as one proud of his conquest, leaped
out in triumph among the people, who received him with as great tokens
of joy, clapping their hands and crowning him with garlands and
flowers. Pompey was not then present in the senate, because it is
not lawful for generals in command of an army to come into the city.
But Marcellus rising up, said, that he would not sit there hearing
speeches, when he saw ten legions already passing the Alps on their
march toward the city, but on his own authority would send some one to
oppose them in defence of the country.
  Upon this the city went into mourning, as in a public calamity,
and Marcellus, accompanied by the senate, went solemnly through the
forum to meet Pompey, and made him this address: "I hereby give you
orders, O Pompey, to defend your country, to employ the troops you now
command, and to levy more." Lentulus, consul elect for the year
following, spoke to the same purpose. Antony, however, contrary to the
will of the senate, having in a public assembly read a letter of
Caesar's, containing various plausible overtures such as were likely
to gain the common people, proposing, namely, that both Pompey and he,
quitting their governments and dismissing their armies, should
submit to the judgment of the people, and give an account of their
actions before them, the consequence was that when Pompey began to
make his levies, he found himself disappointed in his expectations.
Some few, indeed, came in, but those very unwillingly; others would
not answer to their names, and the generality cried out for peace.
Lentulus, notwithstanding he was now entered upon his consulship,
would not assemble the senate; but Cicero, who was lately returned
from Cilicia, laboured for a reconciliation, proposing that Caesar
should leave his province of Gaul and army, reserving two legions
only, together with the government of Illyricum, and should thus be
put in nomination for a second consulship. Pompey disliking this
motion, Caesar's friends were contented that he should surrender one
of the two; but Lentulus still opposing, and Cato crying out that
Pompey did ill to be deceived again, the reconciliation did not take
effect.
  In the meantime, news was brought that Caesar had occupied Ariminum,
a great city in Italy, and was marching directly towards Rome with all
his forces. But this latter was altogether false, for he had no more
with him at that time than three hundred horse and five thousand foot;
and he did not mean to tarry for the body of his army, which lay
beyond the Alps, choosing rather to fall in on a sudden upon his
enemies, while they were in confusion, and did not expect him, than to
give them time, and fight them after they had made preparations. For
when he came to the banks of the Rubicon, a river that made the bounds
of his province, there he made a halt, pausing a little, and
considering, we may suppose, with himself the greatness of the
enterprise which he had undertaken; then, at last, like men that are
throwing themselves headlong from some precipice into a vast abyss,
having shut, as it were, his mind's eyes and put away from his sight
the idea of danger, he merely uttered to those near him in Greek the
words, "Anerriphtho kubos" (let the die be cast), and led his army
through it. No sooner was the news arrived, but there was an uproar
throughout all the city, and a consternation in the people even to
astonishment, such as never was known in Rome before; all the senate
ran immediately to Pompey, and the magistrates followed. And when
Tullus made inquiry about his legions and forces, Pompey seemed to
pause a little, and answered with some hesitation that he had those
two legions ready that Caesar sent back, and that out of the men who
had been previously enrolled he believed he could shortly make up a
body of thirty thousand men. On which Tullus crying out aloud, "O
Pompey, you have deceived us," gave his advice to send off a
deputation to Caesar. Favonius, a man of fair character, except that
he used to suppose his own petulance and abusive talking a copy of
Cato's straightforwardness, bade Pompey stamp upon the ground, and
call forth the forces he had promised. But Pompey bore patiently
with this unseasonable raillery; and on Cato putting him in mind of
what he had foretold from the very beginning about Caesar, made this
answer only, that Cato indeed had spoken more like a prophet, but he
had acted more like a friend. Cato then advised them to choose
Pompey general with absolute power and authority, saying that the same
men who do great evils know best how to cure them. He himself went his
way forthwith into Sicily, the province that was allotted him, and all
the rest of the senators likewise departed every one to his respective
government.
  Thus all Italy in a manner being up in arms, no one could say what
was best to be done. For those that were without came from all parts
flocking into the city; and they who were within, seeing the confusion
and disorder so great there, all good things impotent, and
disobedience and insubordination grown too strong to be controlled
by the magistrates, were quitting it as fast as the other came in.
Nay, it was so far from being possible to allay their fears, that they
would not suffer Pompey to follow out his own judgment, but every
man pressed and urged him according to his particular fancy, whether
it proceeded from doubt, fear, grief, or any meaner passion; so that
even in the same day quite contrary counsels were acted upon. Then,
again, it was as impossible to have any good intelligence of the
enemy; for what each man heard by chance upon a flying rumour he would
report for truth, and exclaim against Pompey if he did not believe it.
Pompey, at length, seeing such a confusion in Rome, determined with
himself to put an end to their clamours by his departure, and
therefore commanding all the senate to follow him, and declaring
that whosoever tarried behind should be judged a confederate of
Caesar's, about the dusk of the evening he went out and left the city.
The consuls also followed after in a hurry, without offering the
sacrifices to the gods usual before a war. But in all this, Pompey
himself had the glory that, in the midst of such calamities, he had so
much of men's love and good-will. For though many found fault with the
conduct of the war, yet no man hated the general; and there were
more to be found of those that went out of Rome, because that they
could not forsake Pompey, than of those that fled for love of liberty.
  Some few days after Pompey was gone out Caesar came into the city,
and made himself master of it, treating every one with a great deal of
courtesy, and appeasing their fears, except only Metellus, one of
the tribunes; on whose refusing to let him take any money out of the
treasury, Caesar threatened him with death, adding words yet harsher
than the threat, that it was far easier for him to do it than say
it. By this means removing Metellus, and taking what moneys were of
use for his occasions, he set forward in pursuit of Pompey,
endeavouring with all speed to drive him out of Italy before his army,
that was in Spain, could join him.
  But Pompey arriving at Brundusium, and having plenty of ships there,
bade the two consuls embark immediately, and with them shipped
thirty cohorts of foot, bound before him for Dyrrhachium. He sent
likewise his father-in-law, Scipio, and Cnaeus, his son, into Syria,
to provide and fit out a fleet there; himself in the meantime having
blocked up the gates, placed his lightest soldiers as guards upon
the walls; and giving express orders that the citizens should keep
within doors, he dug up all the ground inside the city, cutting
trenches, and fixing stakes and palisades throughout all the streets
of the city, except only two that led down to the seaside. Thus in
three days' space having with ease put all the rest of his army on
shipboard, he suddenly gave the signal to those that guarded the
walls, who nimbly repairing to the ships were received on board and
carried off. Caesar meantime perceiving their departure by seeing
the walls unguarded, hastened after, and in the heat of pursuit was
all but entangled himself among the stakes and trenches. But the
Brundusians discovering the danger to him, and showing him the way, he
wheeled about, and taking a circuit round the city, made towards the
haven, where he found all the ships on their way excepting only two
vessels that had but a few soldiers aboard.
  Most are of opinion that this departure of Pompey's is to be counted
among the best of his military performances, but Caesar himself
could not but wonder that he, who was thus engarrisoned in a city well
fortified, who was in expectation of his forces from Spain, and was
master of the sea besides, should leave and abandon Italy. Cicero
accuses him of imitating the conduct of Themistocles, rather than of
Pericles, when the circumstances were more like those of Pericles than
they were like those of Themistocles. However, it appeared plainly,
and Caesar showed it by his actions, that he was in great fear of
delay, for when he had taken Numerius, a friend of Pompey's, prisoner,
he sent him as an ambassador to Brundusium, with offers of peace and
reconciliation upon equal terms; but Numerius sailed away with Pompey.
And now Caesar having become master of all Italy in sixty days,
without a drop of bloodshed, had a great desire forthwith to follow
Pompey; but being destitute of shipping, he was forced to divert his
course and march into Spain, designing to bring over Pompey's forces
there to his own.
  In the meantime Pompey raised a mighty army both by sea and land. As
for his navy, it was irresistible. For there were five hundred
men-of-war, besides an infinite company of light vessels,
Liburnians, and others; and for his land-forces, the cavalry made up a
body of seven thousand horse, the very flower of Rome and Italy, men
of family, wealth, and high spirit; but the infantry was a mixture
of inexperienced soldiers drawn from different quarters, and these
he exercised and trained near Beroea, where he quartered his army;
himself noways slothful, but performing all his exercises as if he had
been in the flower of his youth, conduct which raised the spirits of
his soldiers extremely. For it was no small encouragement for them
to see Pompey the Great, sixty years of age wanting two, at one time
handling his arms among the foot, then again mounted among the
horse, drawing out his sword with ease in full career, and sheathing
it up as easily; and in darting the javelin, showing not only skill
and dexterity in bitting the mark, but also strength and activity in
throwing it so far that few of the young men went beyond him.
  Several kings and princes of nations came thither to him, and
there was a concourse of Roman citizens who had held the magistracies,
so numerous that they made up a complete senate. Labienus forsook
his old friend Caesar, whom he had served throughout all his wars in
Gaul, and came over to Pompey; and Brutus, son to that Brutus that was
put to death in Gaul, a man of a high spirit, and one that to that day
had never so much as saluted or spoke to Pompey, looking upon him as
the murderer of his father, came then and submitted himself to him
as the defender of their liberty. Cicero likewise, though he had
written and advised otherwise, yet was ashamed not to be accounted
in the number of those that would hazard their lives and fortunes
for the safeguard of their country. There came to him also into
Macedonia, Tidius Sextius, a man extremely old, and lame of one leg;
so that others indeed mocked and laughed at the spectacle, but Pompey,
as soon as he saw him, rose and ran to meet him, esteeming it no small
testimony in his favour, when men of such age and infirmities should
rather choose to be with him in danger than in safety at home.
Afterwards in a meeting of their senate they passed a decree, on the
motion of Cato, that no Roman citizen should be put to death but in
battle, and that they should not sack or plunder any city that was
subject to the Roman empire, a resolution which gained Pompey's
party still greater reputation, insomuch that those who were noways at
all concerned in the war, either because they dwelt afar off, or
were thought incapable of giving help, were yet, in their good wishes,
upon his side, and in all their words, so far as that went,
supported the good or just cause, as they called it; esteeming those
as enemies to the gods and men that wished not victory to Pompey.
  Neither was Pompey's clemency such but that Caesar likewise showed
himself as merciful a conqueror; for when he had taken and
overthrown all Pompey's forces in Spain, he gave them easy terms,
leaving the commanders at their liberty, and making a running march
through Italy, he came to Brundusium about the winter solstice, and
crossing the sea there, landed at the port of Oricum. And having
Jubius, an intimate friend of Pompey's, with him as his prisoner, he
despatched him to Pompey with an invitation that they, meeting
together in a conference, should disband their armies within three
days, and renewing their former friendship with solemn oaths, should
return together into Italy. Pompey looked upon this again as some
new stratagem, and therefore marching down in all haste to the
sea-coast, possessed himself of all forts and places of strength
suitable to encamp in, and to secure his land-forces, as likewise of
all ports and harbours commodious to receive any that came by sea,
so that what wind soever blew, it must needs, in some way or other, be
favourable to him, bringing in either provision, men, or money;
while Caesar, on the contrary, was so hemmed in both by sea and land
that he was forced to desire battle, daily provoking the enemy, and
assailing them in their very forts, and in these light skirmishes
for the most part had the better. Once only he was dangerously
overthrown, and was within a little of losing his whole army, Pompey
having fought nobly, routing the whole force and killing two
thousand on the spot. But either he was not able, or was afraid, to go
on and force his way into their camp with them; so that Caesar made
the remark, that "To-day the victory had been the enemy's had there
been any one among them to gain it." Pompey's soldiers were so
encouraged by this victory that they were eager now to have all put to
the decision of a battle; but Pompey himself, though he wrote to
distant kings, generals, and states in confederacy with him as a
conqueror, yet was afraid to hazard the success of a battle,
choosing rather by delays and distress of provisions to tire out a
body of men who had never yet been conquered by force of arms, and had
long been used to fight and conquer together; while their time of
life, now an advanced one, which made them quickly weary of those
other hardships of war, such as were long marches and frequent
decampings, making trenches, and building fortifications, made them
eager to come to close combat and venture a battle with all speed.
  Pompey had all along hitherto by his persuasions pretty well quieted
his soldiers; but after this last engagement, when Caesar, for want of
provisions, was forced to raise his camp, and passed through Athamania
into Thessaly, it was impossible to curb or allay the heat of their
spirits any longer. For all crying out with a general voice that
Caesar was fled, some were for pursuing and pressing upon him,
others for returning into Italy; some there were that sent their
friends and servants beforehand to Rome hire houses near the forum,
that they might be in readiness to sue for offices; several of their
own motion sailed off at once to Lesbos to carry to Cornelia (whom
Pompey had conveyed thither to be in safety) the joyful news that
the war was ended. And a senate being called and the matter being
under debate, Afranius was of opinion that Italy should first be
regained, for that it was the grand prize and crown of all the war;
and they who were masters of that would quickly have at their devotion
all the provinces of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Spain, and Gaul; but
what was of greatest weight and moment to Pompey, it was his own
native country that lay near, reaching out her hand for his help;
and certainly it could not be consistent with his honour to leave
her thus exposed to all indignities, and in bondage under slaves and
the flatterers of a tyrant. But Pompey himself, on the contrary,
thought it neither honourable to fly a second time before Caesar,
and be pursued, when fortune had given him the advantage of a pursuit;
nor indeed lawful before the gods to forsake Scipio and divers other
men of consular dignity dispersed throughout Greece and Thessaly,
who must necessarily fall into Caesar's hands, together with large
sums of money and numerous forces; and as to his care for the city
of Rome, that would most eminently appear by removing the scene of war
to a greater distance, and leaving her, without feeling the distress
or even hearing the sound of these evils, to await in peace the return
of whichever should be the victor.
  With this determination, Pompey marched forwards in pursuit of
Caesar, firmly resolved with himself not to give him battle, but
rather to besiege and distress him, by keeping close at his heels, and
cutting him short. There were other reasons that made him continue
this resolution, but especially because a saying that was current
among the Romans serving in the cavalry came to his ear, to the effect
that they ought to beat Caesar as soon as possible, and then humble
Pompey too. And some report it was for this reason that Pompey never
employed Cato in any matter of consequence during the whole war, but
now, when he pursued Caesar, left him to guard his baggage by sea,
fearing lest, if Caesar should be taken off, he himself also by Cato's
means not long after should be forced to give up his power.
  Whilst he was thus slowly attending the motions of the enemy, he was
exposed on all sides to outcries and imputations of using his
generalship to defeat, not Caesar, but his country and the senate,
that he might always continue in authority, and never cease to keep
those for his guards and servants who themselves claimed to govern the
world. Domitius Aenobarbus, continually calling him Agamemnon, the
king of kings, excited jealousy against him; and Favonius, by his
unseasonable raillery, did him no less injury than those who openly
attacked him, as when he cried out, "Good friends, you must not expect
to gather any figs in Tusculum this year." But Lucius Afranius, who
had lain under an imputation of treachery for the loss of the army
in Spain, when he saw Pompey purposely declining an engagement,
declared openly that he could not but admire why those who were so
ready to accuse him did not go themselves and fight this buyer and
seller of their provinces.
  With these and many such speeches they wrought upon Pompey, who
never could bear reproach, or resist the expectations of his
friends; and thus they forced him to break his measures, so that he
forsook his own prudent resolution to follow their vain hopes and
desires: weakness that would have been blamable in the pilot of a
ship, how much more in the sovereign commander of such an army, and so
many nations. But he, though he had often commended those physicians
appetites of their patients, yet himself could not but yield to the
malady and disease of his companions and advisers in the war, rather
than use some severity in their cure. Truly who could have said that
health was not disordered and a cure not required in the case of men
who went up and down the camp, suing already for the consulship and
office of praetor, while Spinther, Domitius, and Scipio made
friends, raised factions, and quarrelled among themselves who should
succeed Caesar in the dignity of his high-priesthood, esteeming all as
lightly as if they were to engage only with Tigranes, King of Armenia,
or some petty Nabathaean king, not with that Caesar and his army
that had stormed a thousand towns, and subdued more than three hundred
several nations; that had fought innumerable battles with the
Germans and Gauls, and always carried the victory; that had taken a
million of men prisoners, and slain as many upon the spot in pitched
battles?
  But they went on soliciting and clamouring, and on reaching the
plain of Pharsalia, they forced Pompey by their pressure and
importunities to call a council of war, where Labienus, general of the
horse, stood up first and swore that he would not return out of the
battle if he did not rout the enemies; and all the rest took the
same oath. That night Pompey dreamed that, as he went into the
theatre, the people received him with great applause, and that he
himself adorned the temple of Venus the Victorious with many spoils.
This vision partly encouraged, but partly also disheartened him,
fearing lest that splendour and ornament to Venus should be made
with spoils furnished by himself to Caesar, who derived his family
from that goddess. Besides there were some panic fears and alarms that
ran through the camp, with such a noise that it awakened him out of
his sleep. And about the time of renewing the watch towards morning,
there appeared a great light over Caesar's camp whilst they were all
at rest, and from thence a ball of flaming fire was carried into
Pompey's camp, which Caesar himself says he saw as he was walking
his rounds.
  Now Caesar having designed to raise his camp with the morning and
move to Scotussa, whilst the soldiers were busy in pulling down
their tents, and sending on their cattle and servants before them with
their baggage, there came in scouts who brought word that they saw
arms carried to and fro in the enemy's camp, and heard a noise and
running up and down as of men preparing for battle; not long after
there came in other scouts with further intelligence, that the first
ranks were already set in battle array. Thereupon Caesar, when he
had told them that the wished-for day was come at last, when they
should fight with men, not with hunger and famine, instantly gave
orders for the red colours to be set up before his tent, that being
the ordinary signal of battle among the Romans. As soon as the
soldiers saw that, they left their tents, and with great shouts of joy
ran to their arms; the officers likewise, on their part, drawing up
their companies in order of battle, every man fell into his proper
rank without any trouble or noise, as quietly and orderly as if they
had been in a dance.
  Pompey himself led the right wing of his army against Antony, and
placed his father-in-law, Scipio, in the middle against Lucius
Calvinus. The left wing was commanded by Lucius Domitius, and
supported by the great mass of the horse. For almost the whole cavalry
was posted there in the hope of crushing Caesar, and cutting off the
tenth legion, which was spoken of as the stoutest in all the army, and
in which Caesar himself usually fought in person. Caesar observing the
left wing of the enemy to be lined and fortified with such a mighty
guard of horse, and alarmed at the gallantry of their appearance, sent
for a detachment of six cohorts out of the reserves, and placed them
in the rear of the tenth legion, commanding them not to stir, lest
they should be discovered by the enemy; but when the enemy's horse
should begin to charge, and press upon them, that they should make
up with all speed to the front through the foremost ranks and not
throw their javelins at a distance, as is usual with brave soldiers,
that they come to a close fight with their swords the sooner, but that
they should strike them upwards into the eyes and faces of the
enemy; telling them that those fine young dancers would never endure
the steel shining in their eyes, but would fly to save their
handsome faces. This was Caesar's employment at that time. But while
he was thus instructing his soldiers, Pompey on horseback was
viewing the order of both armies, and when he saw how well the enemy
kept their ranks, expecting quietly the signal of battle, and, on
the contrary, how impatient and unsteady his own men were, waving up
and down in disorder for want of experience, he was very much afraid
that their ranks would be broken upon the first onset; and therefore
he gave out orders that the van should make a stand, and keeping close
in their ranks should receive the enemy's charge. Caesar much condemns
this command; which, he says, not only took off from the strength of
the blows, which would otherwise have been made with a spring, but
also lost the men the impetus, which, more than anything, in the
moment of their coming upon the enemy, fills soldiers with impulse and
inspiration, the very shouts and rapid pace adding to their fury; of
which Pompey deprived his men, arresting them in their course and
cooling down their heat.
  Caesar's army consisted of twenty-two thousand, and Pompey's of
somewhat above twice as many. When the signal of battle was given on
both sides, and the trumpets began to sound a charge, most men of
course were fully occupied with their own matters; only some few of
the noblest Romans, together with certain Greeks there present,
standing as spectators without the battle, seeing the armies now ready
to join, could not but consider in themselves to what a pass private
ambition and emulation had brought the empire. Common arms, and
kindred ranks drawn up under the selfsame standards, the whole
flower and strength of the same single city here meeting in
collision with itself, offered plain proof how blind and how mad a
thing human nature is when once possessed with any passion; for if
they had been desirous only to rule, and enjoy in peace what they
had conquered in war, the greatest and best part of the world was
subject to them both by sea and land. But if there was yet a thirst in
their ambition, that must still be fed with new trophies and triumphs,
the Parthian and German wars would yield matter enough to satisfy
the most covetous of honour. Scythia, moreover, was yet unconquered,
and the Indians too, where their ambition might be coloured over
with the specious pretext of civilizing barbarous nations. And what
Scythian horse, Parthian arrows, or Indian riches could be able to
resist seventy thousand Roman soldiers, well appointed in arms,
under the command of two such generals as Pompey and Caesar, whose
names they had heard of before that of the Romans, and whose
prowess, by their conquests of such wild, remote, savage, and
brutish nations, was spread further than the fame of the Romans
themselves? To-day they met in conflict, and could no longer be
induced to spare their country, even out of regard for their own glory
or the fear of losing the name which till this day both had held, of
having never yet been defeated. As for their former private ties,
and the charms of Julia, and the marriage that had made them near
connections, these could now only be looked upon as tricks of state,
the mere securities of a treaty made to serve the needs of an
occasion, not the pledges of any real friendship.
  Now, therefore, as soon as the plains of Pharsalia were covered with
men, horse, and armour, and that the signal of battle was raised on
either side, Caius Crassianus, a centurion, who commanded a company of
one hundred and twenty men, was the first that advanced out of
Caesar's army to give the charge and acquit himself of a solemn
engagement that he had made to Caesar. He had been the first man
that Caesar had seen going out of the camp in the morning, and Caesar,
after saluting him, had asked him what he thought of the coming
battle. To which he, stretching out his right hand, replied aloud,
"Thine is the victory, O Caesar, thou shalt conquer gloriously, and
I myself this day will be the subject of thy praise either alive or
dead." In pursuance of this promise he hastened forward, and being
followed by many more, charged into the midst of the enemy. There they
came at once to a close fight with their swords, and made a great
slaughter; but as he was still pressing forward, and breaking the
ranks of the vanguard, one of Pompey's soldiers ran him in at the
mouth, so that the point of the sword came out behind at his neck; and
Crassianus being thus slain, the fight became doubtful, and
continued equal on that part of the battle.
  Pompey had not yet brought on the right wing, but stayed and
looked about, waiting to see what execution his cavalry would do on
the left. They had already drawn out their squadrons in form,
designing to turn Caesar's flank, and force those few horse, which
he had placed in the front, to give back upon the battalion of foot.
But Caesar, on the other side, having given the signal, his horse
retreated back a little, and gave way to those six subsidiary cohorts,
which had been posted in the rear, as a reserve to cover the flank,
and which now came out, three thousand men in number, and met the
enemy; and when they came up, standing by the horses, struck their
javelins upwards, according to their instructions, and hit the
horsemen full in their faces. They, unskillful in any manner of fight,
and least of all expecting or understanding such a kind as this, had
not courage enough to endure the blows upon their faces but turning
their backs, and covering their eyes with their hands, shamefully took
to flight. Caesar's men, however, did not follow them, but marched
upon the foot, and attacked the wing, which the flight of the
cavalry had left unprotected, and liable to be turned and taken in the
rear, so that this wing now being attacked in the flank by these,
and charged in the front by the tenth legion, was not able to abide
the charge, or make any longer resistance, especially when they saw
themselves surrounded and circumvented in the very way in which they
had designed to invest the enemy. Thus these being likewise routed and
put to flight, when Pompey, by the dust flying in the air, conjectured
the fate of his horse, it were very hard to say what his thoughts or
intentions were, but looking like one distracted and beside himself,
and without any recollection or reflection that he was Pompey the
Great, he retired slowly towards his camp, without speaking a word
to any man, exactly according to the description in the verses-

         "But Jove from heaven struck Ajax with a fear;
          Ajax the bold then stood astonished there,
          Flung o'er his back the mighty sevenfold shield,
          And trembling gazed and spied about the field."

  In this state and condition he went into his own tent and sat
down, speechless still, until some of the enemy fell in together
with his men that were flying into the camp, and then he let fall only
this one word, "What! into the very camp?" and said no more, but
rose up, and putting on a dress suitable to his present fortune,
made his way secretly out.
  By this time the rest of the army was put to flight, and there was a
great slaughter in the camp among the servants and those that
guarded the tents, but of the soldiers themselves there were not above
six thousand slain, as is stated by Asinius Pollio, who himself fought
in this battle on Caesar's side. When Caesar's soldiers had taken
the camp, they saw clearly the folly and vanity of the enemy; for
all their tents and pavilions were richly set out with garlands of
myrtle, embroidered carpets and hangings, and tables laid and
covered with goblets. There were large bowls of wine ready, and
everything prepared and put in array, in the manner rather of people
who had offered sacrifice and were going to celebrate a holiday,
than of soldiers who had armed themselves to go out to battle, so
possessed with the expectation of success and so full of empty
confidence had they gone out that morning.
  When Pompey had got a little way from the camp, he dismounted and
forsook his horse, having but a small retinue with him; and finding
that no man pursued him, walked on softly afoot, taken up altogether
with thoughts, such as probably might possess a man that for the space
of thirty-four years together had been accustomed to conquest and
victory, and was then at last, in his old age, learning for the
first time what defeat and flight were. And it was no small affliction
to consider that he had lost in one hour all that glory and power
which he had been getting in so many wars and bloody battles; and that
he who but a little before was guarded with such an army of foot, so
many squadrons of horse, and such a mighty fleet, was now flying in so
mean a condition, and with such a slender retinue, that his very
enemies who fought him could not know him. Thus, when he had passed by
the city of Larissa, and came into the pass of Tempe, being very
thirsty, he kneeled down and drank out of the river; then rising up
again, he passed through Tempe, until he came to the seaside, and
there he betook himself to a poor fisherman's cottage, where he rested
the remainder of the night. The next morning about break of day he
went into one of the river boats, and taking none of those that
followed him except such as were free, dismissed his servants,
advising them to go boldly to Caesar and not be afraid. As he was
rowing up and down near the shore, he chanced to spy a large
merchant ship, lying off. just ready to set sail; the master of
which was a Roman citizen, named Peticius, who, though he was not
familiarly acquainted with Pompey, yet knew him well by sight. Now
it happened that this Peticius dreamed, the night before, that he
saw Pompey, not like the man he had often seen him, but in a humble
and dejected condition, and in that posture discoursing with him. He
was then telling his dream to the people on board, as men do when at
leisure, and especially dreams of that consequence, when of a sudden
one of the mariners told him he saw a river boat with oars putting off
from shore, and that some of the men there shook their garments, and
held out their hands, with signs to take them in; thereupon
Peticius, looking attentively, at once recognized Pompey, just as he
appeared in his dream, and smiting his hand on his head, ordered the
mariners to let down the ship's boat, he himself waving his hand,
and calling to him by his name, already assured of his change and
the change of his fortune by that of his garb. So that without waiting
for any further entreaty or discourse he took him into his ship,
together with as many of his company as he thought fit, and hoisted
sail. There were with him the two Lentuli and Favonius; and a little
after they spied King Deiotarus, making up towards them from the
shore; so they stayed and took him in along with them. At supper time,
the master of the ship having made ready such provisions as he had
aboard, Pompey, for want of his servants, began to undo his shoes
himself, which Favonius noticing, ran to him and undid them, and
helped him to anoint himself, and always after continued to wait upon,
and attended him in all things, as servants do their masters, even
to the washing of his feet and preparing his supper. Insomuch that any
one there present, observing the free and unaffected courtesy of these
services, might have well exclaimed-

         "O heavens, in those that noble are,
          Whate'er they do is fit and fair."

  Pompey, sailing by the city of Amphipolis, crossed over from
thence to Mitylene, with a design to take in Cornelia and his son; and
as soon as he arrived at the port in that island, he despatched a
messenger into the city with news very different from Cornelia's
expectation. For she, by all the former messages and letters sent to
please her, had been put in hopes that the war was ended at
Dyrrhachium, and that there was nothing more remaining for Pompey
but the pursuit of Caesar. The messenger, finding her in the same
hopes still, was not able to salute or speak to her, but declaring the
greatness of her misfortune by his tears rather than his words,
desired her to make haste if she would see Pompey, with one ship only,
and that not of his own. The young lady hearing this, fell down in a
swoon, and continued a long time senseless and speechless. And when
with some trouble she was brought to her senses again, being conscious
to herself that this was no time for lamentation and tears, she
started up and ran through the city towards the seaside, where
Pompey meeting and embracing her, as she sank down, supported by his
arms, "This, sir," she exclaimed, "is the effect of my fortune, not of
yours, that I see you thus reduced to one poor vessel, who before your
marriage with Cornelia were wont to sail in these seas with a fleet of
five hundred ships. Why therefore should you come to see me, or why
not rather have left to her evil genius one who has brought upon you
her own ill fortune? How happy a woman had I been if I had breathed
out my last before the news came from Parthia of the death of Publius,
the husband of my youth, and how prudent if I had followed his
destiny, as I designed! But I was reserved for a greater mischief,
even the ruin of Pompey the Great."
  Thus, they say, Cornelia spoke to him, and this was Pompey's, reply:
"You have had, Cornelia, but one season of a better fortune, which, it
may be, gave you unfounded hopes, by attending me a longer time than
is usual. It behooves us, who are mortals born, to endure these
events, and to try fortune yet again; neither is it any less
possible to recover our former state than it was to fall from that
into this." Thereupon Cornelia sent for her servants and baggage out
of the city. The citizens also of Mitylene came out to salute and
invite Pompey into the city, but he refused, advising them to be
obedient to the conqueror and fear not, for that Caesar was a man of
great goodness and clemency. Then turning to Cratippus, the
philosopher, who came among the rest out of the city to visit him,
he began to find some fault, and briefly argued with him upon
Providence, but Cratippus modestly declined the dispute, putting him
in better hopes only, lest by opposing he might seem too austere or
unseasonable. For he might have put Pompey a question in his turn in
defence of Providence; and might have demonstrated the necessity there
was that the commonwealth should be turned into a monarchy, because of
their ill government in the state; and could have asked, "How, O
Pompey, and by what token or assurance can we ascertain, that if the
victory had been yours, you would have used your fortune better than
Caesar? We must leave the divine power to act as we find it do."
  Pompey having taken his wife and friends aboard, set sail, making no
port, or touching anywhere, but when he was necessitated to take in
provisions or fresh water. The first city he entered was Attalia, in
Pamphylia, and whilst he was there, there came some galleys thither to
him out of Cilicia, together with a small body of soldiers, and he had
almost sixty senators with him again; then hearing that his navy was
safe too, and that Cato had rallied a considerable body of soldiers
after their overthrow, and was crossing with them over into Africa, he
began to complain and blame himself to his friends that he had allowed
himself to be driven into engaging by land, without making use of
his other forces, in which he was irresistibly the stronger, and had
not kept near enough to his fleet, that failing by land, he might have
reinforced himself from the sea, and would have been again at the head
of a power quite sufficient to encounter the enemy on equal terms.
And, in truth, neither did Pompey during all the war commit a
greater oversight, nor Caesar use a more subtle stratagem, than in
drawing the fight so far off from the naval forces.
  As it now was, however, since he must come to some decision and
try some plan within his present ability, he despatched his agents
to the neighbouring cities, and himself sailed about in person to
others, requiring their aid in money and men for his ships. But,
fearing lest the rapid approach of the enemy might cut off all his
preparations, he began to consider what place would yield him the
safest refuge and retreat at present. A consultation was held, and
it was generally agreed that no province of the Romans was secure
enough. As for foreign kingdoms, he himself was of opinion that
Parthia would be the fittest to receive and defend them in their
present weakness, and best able to furnish them with new means, and
send them out again with large forces. Others of the council were
for going into Africa, and to King Juba. But Theophanes the Lesbian
thought it madness to leave Egypt, that was but at a distance of three
days' sailing, and make no use of Ptolemy, who was still a boy, and
was highly indebted to Pompey for the friendship and favour he had
shown to his father, only to put himself under the Parthian, and trust
the most treacherous nation in the world; and rather than make any
trial of the clemency of a Roman, and his own near connection, to whom
if he would but yield to be second he might be the first and chief
over all the rest, to go and place himself at the mercy of Arsaces,
which even Crassus had not submitted to while alive; and, moreover, to
expose his young wife, of the family of the Scipios, among a barbarous
people, who govern by their lusts, and measure their greatness by
their power to commit affronts and insolences; from whom, though she
suffered no dishonour, yet it might be thought she did, being in the
hands of those who had the power to do it. This argument alone, they
say, was persuasive enough to divert his course, that was designed
towards Euphrates, if it were so indeed that any counsel of
Pompey's, and not some superior power, made him take this other way.
  As soon, therefore, as it was resolved upon that he should fly
into Egypt, setting sail from Cyprus in a galley of Seleucia, together
with Cornelia, while the rest of his company sailed along near him,
some in ships of war, and others in merchant vessels, he passed over
sea without danger. But on hearing that King Ptolemy was posted with
his army at the city of Pelusium, making war against his sister, he
steered his course that way, and sent a messenger before to acquaint
the king with his arrival, and to crave his protection. Ptolemy
himself was quite young, therefore Pothinus, who the principal
administration of affairs, called a council of the chief men, those
being the greatest whom he pleased to make so, and commanded them
every man to deliver his opinion touching the reception of Pompey.
It was, indeed, a miserable thing that the fate of the great Pompey
should be left to the determinations of Pothinus the eunuch, Theodotus
of Chois, the paid rhetoric master, and Achillas the Egyptian. For
these, among the chamberlains and menial domestics that made up the
rest of the council, were the chief and leading men. Pompey, who
thought it dishonourable for him to owe his safety to Caesar, riding
at anchor at a distance from shore, was forced to wait the sentence of
this tribunal. It seems they were so far different in their opinions
that some were for sending the man away, and others, again, for
inviting and receiving him; but Theodotus, to show his cleverness
and the cogency of his rhetoric, undertook to demonstrate that neither
the one nor the other was safe in that juncture of affairs. For if
they entertained him, they would be sure to make Caesar their enemy
and Pompey their master; or if they dismissed him, they might render
themselves hereafter obnoxious to Pompey, for that inhospitable
expulsion, and to Caesar, for the escape; so that the most expedient
course would be to send for him and take away his life, for by that
means they would ingratiate themselves with the one, and have no
reason to fear the other; adding, it is related, with a smile, that "a
dead man cannot bite."
  This advice being approved of, they committed the execution of it to
Achillas. He, therefore, taking with him as his accomplices one
Septimius, a man that had formerly held a command under Pompey, and
Salvius, another centurion, with three or four attendants, made up
towards Pompey galley. In the meantime, all the chiefest of those
who accompanied Pompey in this voyage were come into his ship to learn
the event of their embassy. But when they saw the manner of their
reception, that in appearance it was neither princely nor
honourable, nor indeed in any way answerable to the hopes of
Theophanes, or their expectation (for there came but a few men in a
fisherman's boat to meet them), they began to suspect the meanness
of their entertainment, and gave warning to Pompey that he should
row back his galley, whilst he was out of their reach, and make for
the sea. By this time the Egyptian boat drew near, and Septimius
standing up first, saluted Pompey, in the Latin tongue, by the title
of imperator. Then Achillas, saluting him in the Greek language,
desired him to come aboard his vessel, telling him that the sea was
very shallow towards the shore, and that a galley of that burden could
not avoid striking upon the sands. At the same time they saw several
of the king's galleys getting their men on board, and all the shore
covered with soldiers; so that even if they changed their minds, it
seemed impossible for them to escape, and besides, their distrust
would have given the assassins a pretence for their cruelty. Pompey,
therefore, taking his leave of Cornelia, who was already lamenting his
death before it came, bade two centurions, with Philip, one of his
freedmen, and a slave called Scythes, go on board the boat before him.
And as some of the crew with Achillas were reaching out their hands to
help him, he turned about towards his wife and son, and repeated those
iambics of Sophocles-

         "He that once enters at a tyrant's door
          Becomes a slave, though he were free before."

These were the last words he spoke to his friends, and so he went
aboard. Observing presently that notwithstanding there was a
considerable distance betwixt his galley and the shore, yet none of
the company addressed any words of friendliness or welcome to him
all the way, he looked earnestly upon Septimius, and said, "I am not
mistaken, surely, in believing you to have been formerly my
fellow-soldier." But he only nodded with his head, making no reply
at all, nor showing any other courtesy. Since, therefore, they
continued silent, Pompey took a little book in his hand, in which
was written out an address in Greek, which he intended to make to King
Ptolemy, and began to read it. When they drew near to the shore,
Cornelia, together with the rest of his friends in the galley, was
very impatient to see the event, and began to take courage at last
when she saw several of the royal escort coming to meet him,
apparently to give him a more honourable reception; but in the
meantime, as Pompey took Philip by the hand to rise up more easily.
Septimius first stabbed him from behind with his sword, and after
him likewise Salvius and Achillas drew out their swords. He,
therefore, taking up his gown with both hands, drew it over his
face, and neither saying nor doing anything unworthy of himself,
only groaning a little, endured the wounds they gave him, and so ended
his life, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, the very next day
after the day of his birth.
  Cornelia, with her company from the galley, seeing him murdered,
gave such a cry that it was heard on the shore, and weighing anchor
with all speed, they hoisted sail, and fled. A strong breeze from
the shore assisted their flight into the open sea, so that the
Egyptians, though desirous to overtake them, desisted from the
pursuit. But they cut off Pompey's head, and threw the rest of his
body overboard, leaving it naked upon the shore, to be viewed by any
that had the curiosity to see so sad a spectacle. Philip stayed by and
watched till they had glutted their eyes in viewing it; and then
washing it with sea-water, having nothing else, he wrapped it up in
a shirt of his own for a winding-sheet. Then seeking up and down about
the sands, at last he found some rotten planks of a little
fisher-boat, not much, but yet enough to make up a funeral pile for
a naked body, and that not quite entire. As Philip was busy in
gathering and putting these old planks together, an old Roman citizen,
who in his youth had served in the wars under Pompey, came up to him
and demanded who he was that was preparing the funeral of Pompey the
Great. And Philip making answer that he was his freedman, "Nay, then,"
said he, "you shall not have this honour alone; let even me, too, I
pray you, have my share in such a pious office, that I may not
altogether repent me of this pilgrimage in a strange land, but in
compensation of many misfortunes may obtain this happiness at last,
even with mine own hands to touch the body of Pompey, and do the
last duties to the greatest general among the Romans." And in this
manner were the obsequies of Pompey performed. The next day Lucius
Lentulus, not knowing what had passed, came sailing from Cyprus
along the shore of that coast, and seeing a funeral pile, and Philip
standing by, exclaimed, before he was yet seen by any one, "Who is
this that has found his end here?" adding after a short pause, with
a sigh, "Possibly even thou, Pompeius Magnus" and so going ashore,
he was presently apprehended and slain. This was the end of Pompey.
  Not long after, Caesar arrived in the country that was polluted with
this foul act, and when one of the Egyptians was sent to present him
with Pompey's head, he turned away from him with abhorrence as from
a murderer; and on receiving his seal, on which was engraved a lion
holding a sword in his paw, he burst into tears. Achillas and Pothinus
he put to death; and King Ptolemy himself, being overthrown in
battle upon the banks of the Nile, fled away and was never heard of
afterwards. Theodotus, the rhetorician, flying out of Egypt, escaped
the hands of Caesar's justice, but lived a vagabond in banishment,
wandering up and down, despised and hated of all men, till at last
Marcus Brutus, after he had killed Caesar, finding him in his province
of Asia, put him to death with every kind of ignominy. The ashes of
Pompey were carried to his wife Cornelia, who deposited them at his
country-house near Alba.


                               THE END