Pompey

And when he was in Rhodes, he heard all the sophists there, and made each of them a present of a talent. Poseidonius has actually described the discourse which he held before him, against Hermagoras the rhetorician, on Investigation in General. At Athens, too, he not only treated the philosophers with like munificence,

but also gave fifty talents to the city towards its restoration. He therefore hoped to set foot in Italy with a reputation more brilliant than that of any other man, and that his family would be as eager to see him as he was to see them. But that divine agency which always takes pains to mingle with the great and splendid gifts of fortune a certain portion of evil, had long been secretly at work preparing to make his return a very bitter one.

For Mucia his wife had played the wanton during his absence. While Pompey was far away, he had treated the report of it with contempt; but when he was nearer Italy and, as it would seem, had examined the charge more at his leisure, he sent her a bill of divorce, although he neither wrote at that time, nor afterwards declared, the grounds on which he put her away; but the reason is stated in Cicero’s letters.[*](Not in any which are extant. In a letter to Atticus (i. 12, 3) Cicero says that Pompey’s divorce of Mucia was heartily approved.)