Pompey

When Lucullus came back from Asia, where he had been outrageously treated by Pompey, the senate at once gave him a splendid reception, and after Pompey’s arrival, wishing to obstruct that leader’s reputation, it urged Lucullus all the more to take part in public life. In other matters Lucullus was already dulled and chilled past all efficiency, having given himself over to the pleasures of ease and the enjoyment of his wealth; but he sprang at once upon Pompey and by a vigorous attack won a victory over him in the matter of those ordinances of his own which Pompey had annulled,[*](Cf. chapter xxxi. 1. ) and carried the day in the senate with the support of Cato.

Thus worsted and hard pressed, Pompey was forced to fly for refuge to popular tribunes and attach himself to young adventurers. Among these the boldest and vilest was Clodius, who took him up and threw him down under the feet of the people, and keeping him ignobly rolled about in the dust of the forum, and dragging him to and fro there, he used him for the confirmation of what was said and proposed to gratify and flatter the people.

He even went so far as to ask a reward for his services from Pompey, as if he were helping him instead of disgracing him, and this reward he subsequently got in the betrayal of Cicero, who was Pompey’s friend and had done him more political favours than any one else. For when Cicero was in danger of condemnation and begged his aid, Pompey would not even see him, but shut his front door upon those who came in Cicero’s behalf, and slipped away by another. Cicero, therefore, fearing the result of his trial, withdrew secretly from Rome.[*](Having been impeached for illegally putting Lentulus and Cethegus to death, he went into voluntary exile in 58 B.C. See the Cicero, chapters xxx. and xxxi.)

At this time Caesar had returned from his province[*](He returned from Spain in 60 B.C. See the Caesar, chapters xiii. and xiv. ) and had inaugurated a policy which brought him the greatest favour for the present and power for the future, but proved most injurious to Pompey and the city. He was a candidate for his first consulship, and seeing that, while Crassus and Pompey were at variance, if he attached himself to the one he would make an enemy of the other, he sought to reconcile them with one another,—a thing which was honourable in itself and conducive to the public good, but he undertook it for an unworthy reason and with all the cleverness of an intriguer.

For those opposing forces which, as in a vessel, prevented the city from rocking to and fro, were united into one, thereby giving to faction an irresistible momentum that overpowered and overthrew everything. At all events, Cato, when men said that the state had been overturned by the quarrel which afterwards arose between Caesar and Pompey, declared that they wrongly laid the blame on what had merely happened last;

for it was not their discord nor yet their enmity, but their concord and harmony which was the first and greatest evil to befall the city. Caesar was, indeed, chosen consul; but he at once paid his court to the indigent and pauper classes by proposing measures for the founding of cities and the distribution of lands, thereby lowering the dignity of his office and making the consulate a kind of tribunate.

And when he was opposed by his colleague Bibulus, and Cato stood ready to support Bibulus with all his might, Caesar brought Pompey on the rostra before the people, and asked him in so many words whether he approved the proposed laws: and when Pompey said he did, Then, said Caesar, in case any resistance should be made to the laws, will you come to the aid of the people?