Crassus

After this, Pompey was at once asked to stand for the consulship, and Crassus, although he had hopes of becoming his colleague, did not hesitate to ask Pompey’s assistance. Pompey received his request gladly (for he was desirous of having Crassus, in some way or other, always in debt to him for some favour), and eagerly promoted his candidature, and finally said in a speech to the assembly that he should be no less grateful to them for the colleague than for the office which he desired.

However, when once they had assumed office,[*](70 B.C.) they did not remain on this friendly basis, but differed on almost every measure, quarrelled with one another about everything, and by their contentiousness rendered their consulship barren politically and without achievement, except that Crassus made a great sacrifice in honour of Hercules, feasted the people at ten thousand tables, and made them an allowance of grain for three months.

And when at last their term of office was closing, and they were addressing the assembly, a certain man, not a noble, but a Roman knight, rustic and rude in his way of life, Onatius Aurelius, mounted the rostra and recounted to the audience a vision that had come to him in his sleep. Jupiter, he said, appeared to me and bade me declare in public that you should not suffer your consuls to lay down their office until they become friends.

When the man said this and the people urged a reconciliation, Pompey, for his part, stood motionless, but Crassus took the initiative, clasped him by the hand, and said: Fellow-citizens, I think there is nothing humiliating or unworthy in my taking the first step towards good-will and friendship with Pompey, to whom you gave the title of Great before he had grown a beard, and voted him a triumph before he was a senator.