POMPEY.
At an age when Caesar was still idling away his time, Pompey had
achieved honors such as the veteran generals of Rome were accustomed to
regard as the highest to which they could aspire. He had only just left,
if indeed he had left, school, when his father took him to serve under
him in the war against the Italian allies of Rome. He was not more than
nineteen when he distinguished himself by behaving in circumstances of
great difficulty and danger with extraordinary prudence and courage. The
elder Pompey, Strabo "the squint-eyed," as his contemporaries called
him, after their strange fashion of giving nicknames from personal
defects, and as he was content to call himself, was an able general, but
hated for his cruelty and avarice. The leaders of the opposite faction
saw an opportunity of getting rid of a dangerous enemy and of bringing
over to their own side the forces which he commanded. Their plan was to
assassinate the son as he slept, to burn the father in his tent, and at
the same time to stir up a mutiny among the troops. The secret, however,
was not kept. A letter describing the plot was brought to the young
Pompey as he sat at dinner with the ringleader. The lad showed no sign
of disturbance, but drank more freely than usual, and pledged his false
friend with especial heartiness. He then rose, and after putting an
extra guard on his father's tent, composed himself to sleep, but not in
his bed. The assassins stabbed the coverlet with repeated blows, and
then ran to rouse the soldiers to revolt. The camp was immediately in an
uproar, and the elder Pompey, though he had been preserved by his son's
precautions, dared not attempt to quell it. The younger man was equal to
the occasion. Throwing himself on his face in front of the gate of the
camp, he declared that if his comrades were determined to desert to the
enemy, they must pass over his dead body. His entreaties prevailed, and
a reconciliation was effected between the general and his troops.
Not many weeks after this incident the father died, struck, it was said,
by lightning, and Pompey became his own master. It was not long before
he found an opportunity of gaining still higher distinction. The civil
war still continued to rage, and few did better service to the party of
the aristocrats than Pompey. Others were content to seek their personal
safety in Sulla's camp; Pompey was resolved himself to do something for
the cause. He made his way to Picenum, where his family estates we e
situated and where his own influence was great, and raised three legions
(nearly twenty thousand men), with all their commissariat and transport
complete, and hurried to the assistance of Sulla. Three of the hostile
generals sought to intercept him. He fell with his whole force on one of
them, and crushed him, carrying off, besides his victory, the personal
distinction of having slain in single combat the champion of the
opposing force. The towns by which he passed eagerly hailed him as their
deliverer. A second commander who ventured to encounter him found
himself deserted by his army and was barely able to escape; a third was
totally routed. Sulla received his young partisan, who was not more than
twenty-three years of age, with distinguished honors, even rising from
his seat and uncovering at his approach.
During the next two years his reputation continued to increase. He won
victories in Gaul, in Sicily, and in Africa. As he was returning to
Rome after the last of these campaigns, the great Dictator himself
headed the crowd that went forth to meet him, and saluted him as Pompey
the Great, a title which he continued to use as his family name[5]. But
there was a further honor which the young general was anxious to obtain,
but Sulla was unwilling to grant, the supreme glory of a triumph. "No
one," he said, "who was not or had not been consul, or at least praetor,
could triumph. The first of the Scipios, who had won Spain from the
Carthaginians, had not asked for this honor because he wanted this
qualification. Was it to be given to a beardless youth, too young even
to sit in the Senate?" But the beardless youth insisted. He even had the
audacity to hint that the future belonged not to Sulla but to himself.
"More men," he said, "worship the rising than the setting sun." Sulla
did not happen to catch the words, but he saw the emotion they aroused
in the assembly, and asked that they should be repeated to him. His
astonishment permitted him to say nothing more than "Let him triumph!
Let him triumph." And triumph he did, to the disgust of his older
rivals, whom he intended, but that the streets were not broad enough to
allow of the display, still further to affront by harnessing elephants
instead of horses to his chariot.
[Footnote 5: _Pompeius_ was the name of his house (_gens). Strabo_ had
been the name of his family (_familia_). This he seems to have disused,
assuming _Magnus_ in its stead.]
Two years afterwards he met an antagonist more formidable than any he
had yet encountered. Sertorius, the champion at once of the party of the
people and of the native tribes of Spain, was holding out against the
government of Rome. The veteran leader professed a great contempt for
his young adversary, "I should whip the boy," he said, "if I were not
afraid of the old woman" (meaning Pompey's colleague). But he took good
care not to underrate him in practice, and put forth all his skill in
dealing with him. Pompey's first campaign against him was disastrous;
the successes of the second were checkered by some serious defeats. For
five years the struggle continued, and seemed little likely to come to
an end, when Sertorius was assassinated by his second in command,
Perpenna. Perpenna was unable to wield the power which he had thus
acquired, and was defeated and taken prisoner by Pompey. He endeavored
to save his life by producing the correspondence of Sertorius. This
implicated some of the most distinguished men in Rome, who had held
secret communications with the rebel leader and had even invited him
over into Italy. With admirable wisdom Pompey, while he ordered the
instant execution of the traitor, burned the letters unread.
Returning to Italy he was followed by his usual good fortune. That
country had been suffering cruelly from a revolt of the slaves, which
the Roman generals had been strangely slow in suppressing. Roused to
activity by the tidings of Pompey's approach, Crassus, who was in
supreme command, attacked and defeated the insurgent army. A
considerable body, however, contrived to escape, and it was this with
which Pompey happened to fall in, and which he completely destroyed.
"Crassus defeated the enemy," he was thus enabled to boast, "but I
pulled up the war by the roots." No honors were too great for a man at
once so skillful and so fortunate (for the Romans had always a great
belief in a general's good fortune). On the 31st of December, B.C. 71,
being still a simple gentleman--that is, having held no civil office in
the State--he triumphed for the second time, and on the following day,
being then some years below the legal age, and having held none of the
offices by which it was usual to mount to the highest dignity in the
commonwealth, he entered on his first consul ship, Crassus being his
colleague.
Still he had not yet reached the height of his glory. During the years
that followed his consulship, the pirates who infested the Mediterranean
had become intolerable. Issuing, not as was the case in after times,
from the harbors of Northern Africa, but from fastnesses in the southern
coast of Asia Minor, they plundered the more civilized regions of the
West, and made it highly dangerous to traverse the seas either for
pleasure or for gain. It was impossible to transport the armies of Rome
to the provinces except in the winter, when the pirates had retired to
their strongholds. Even Italy itself was not safe. The harbor of Caieta
with its shipping, was burned under the very eye of the praetor. From
Misenum the pirates carried off the children of the admiral who had the
year before led an expedition against them. They even ventured not only
to blockade Ostia, the harbor of Rome, and almost within sight of the
city, but to capture the fleet that was stationed there. They were
especially insulting to Roman citizens. If a prisoner claimed to be
such--and the claim generally insured protection--they would pretend the
greatest penitence and alarm, falling on their knees before him, and
entreating his pardon. Then they would put shoes on his feet, and robe
him in a citizen's garb. Such a mistake, they would say, must not happen
again. The end of their jest was to make him "walk the plank," and with
the sarcastic permission to depart unharmed, they let down a ladder into
the sea, and compelled him to descend, under penalty of being still more
summarily thrown overboard. Men's eyes began to be turned on Pompey, as
the leader who had been prosperous in all his undertakings. In 67 B.C. a
law was proposed appointing a commander (who, however, was not named),
who should have absolute power for three years over the sea as far as
the Pillars of Hercules (the Straits of Gibraltar), and the coast for
fifty miles inland, and who should be furnished with two hundred ships,
as many soldiers and sailors as he wanted, and more than a million
pounds in money. The nobles were furious in their opposition, and
prepared to prevent by force the passing of this law. The proposer
narrowly escaped with his life, and Pompey himself was threatened. "If
you will be another Romulus, like Romulus you shall die" (one form of
the legend of Rome's first king represented him as having been torn to
pieces by the senators.) But all resistance was unavailing. The new
command was created, and of course bestowed upon Pompey. The price of
corn, which had risen to a famine height in Rome, fell immediately the
appointment was made. The result, indeed, amply justified the choice.
The new general made short work of the task that had been set him. Not
satisfied with the force put under his command, he collected five
hundred ships and one hundred and twenty thousand men. With these he
swept the pirates from the seas and stormed their strongholds, and all
in less than three months. Twenty thousand prisoners fell into his
hands. With unusual humanity he spared their lives, and thinking that
man was the creature of circumstances, determined to change their manner
of life. They were to be removed from the sea, should cease to be
sailors, and become farmers. It is possible that the old man of Corycus,
whose skill in gardening Virgil celebrates in one of his Georgics, was
one of the pirates whom the judicious mercy of Pompey changed into a
useful citizen.
A still greater success remained to be won. For more than twenty years
war, occasionally intercepted by periods of doubtful peace, had been
carried on between Rome and Mithridates, king of Pontus. This prince,
though reduced more than once to the greatest extremities, had contrived
with extraordinary skill and courage to retrieve his fortunes, and now
in 67 B.C. was in possession of the greater part of his original
dominion. Lucullus, a general of the greatest ability, was in command of
the forces of Rome, but he had lost the confidence of his troops, and
affairs were at a standstill. Pompey's friends proposed that the
supreme command should be transferred to him, and the law, which Cicero
supported in what is perhaps the most perfect of his political
speeches[6], was passed. Pompey at once proceeded to the East. For four
years Mithridates held out, but with little hope of ultimate success or
even of escape. In 64, after vainly attempting to poison himself, such
was the power of the antidotes by which he had fortified himself against
domestic treachery (for so the story runs), he perished by the sword of
one of his mercenaries. For two years more Pompey was busied in settling
the affairs of the East. At last, in 61, he returned to Rome to enjoy a
third triumph, and that the most splendid which the city had ever
witnessed. It lasted for two days, but still the time was too short for
the display of the spoils of victory. The names of no less than fifteen
conquered nations were carried in procession. A thousand forts, nine
hundred cities, had been taken, and the chief of them were presented by
means of pictures to the eyes of the people. The revenue of the State
had been almost doubled by these conquests. Ninety thousand talents in
gold and silver coin were paid into the treasury, nor was this at the
expense of the soldiers, whose prize money was so large that the
smallest share amounted to fifty pounds. Never before was such a sight
seen in the world, and if Pompey had died when it was finished, he would
have been proclaimed the most fortunate of mankind.
[Footnote 6: The Pro Lege Manilia. The law was proposed by one Manilius,
a tribune of the people.]
Certainly he was never so great again as he was that day. When with
Caesar and Crassus he divided all the power of the State, he was only
the second, and by far the second, of the three. His influence, his
prestige, his popularity declined year by year. The good fortune which
had followed him without ceasing from his earliest years now seemed to
desert him. Even the shows, the most magnificent ever seen in the city,
with which he entertained the people at the dedication of his theater
(built at his own expense for the public benefit) were not wholly a
success. Here is a letter of Cicero about them to his friend Marius;
interesting as giving both a description of the scene and as an account
of the writer's own feelings about it. "If it was some bodily pain or
weakness of health that kept you from coming to the games, I must
attribute your absence to fortune rather than to a judicious choice. But
if you thought the things which most men admire contemptible, and so,
though health permitted, would not come, then I am doubly glad; glad
both that you were free from illness and that you were so vigorous in
mind as to despise the sights which others so unreasonably admire....
Generally the shows were most splendid, but not to your taste, if I may
judge of yours by my own. First, the veteran actors who for their own
honor had retired from the stage, returned to it to do honor to Pompey.
Your favorite, my dear friend Aesopus, acquitted himself so poorly as to
make us all feel that he had best retire. When he came to the oath--
'And if of purpose set I break my faith,'
his voice failed him. What need to tell you more? You know all about the
other shows; they had not even the charm which moderate shows commonly
have. The ostentation with which they were furnished forth took away all
their gayety. What charm is there in having six hundred mules in the
_Clytemnestra_ or three thousand supernumeraries in the _Trojan Horse,_
or cavalry and infantry in foreign equipment in some battle-piece. The
populace admired all this; but it would have given you no kind of
pleasure. After this came a sort of wild-beast fights, lasting for five
days. They were splendid: no man denies it. But what man of culture can
feel any pleasure when some poor fellow is torn in pieces by some
powerful animal, or when some noble animal is run through with a hunting
spear. If these things are worth seeing, you have seen them before. And
I, who was actually present, saw nothing new. The last day was given up
to the elephants. Great was the astonishment of the crowd at the sight;
but of pleasure there was nothing. Nay, there was some feeling of
compassion, some sense that this animal has a certain kinship with man."
The elder Pliny tells us that two hundred lions were killed on this
occasion, and that the pity felt for the elephants rose to the height of
absolute rage. So lamentable was the spectacle of their despair, so
pitifully did they implore the mercy of the audience, "that the whole
multitude rose in tears and called down upon Pompey the curses which
soon descended on him."
And then Pompey's young wife, Julia, Caesar's daughter, died. She had
been a bond of union between the two men, and the hope of peace was
sensibly lessened by her loss. Perhaps the first rupture would have
come any how; when it did come it found Pompey quite unprepared for the
conflict. He seemed indeed to be a match for his rival, but his strength
collapsed almost at a touch. "I have but to stamp with my foot," he said
on one occasion, "and soldiers will spring up;" yet when Caesar declared
war by crossing the Rubicon, he fled without a struggle. In little more
than a year and a half all was over. The battle of Pharsalia was fought
on the 9th of August, and on September the 29th the man who had
triumphed over three continents lay a naked, headless corpse on the
shore of Egypt.