was agreeable to Pompey, whereby we may know that the
pact of the Triumvirate was already at an end. In another letter he
speaks of the coming of the Parthians, and of Cicero's inability to
fight with them because of the inadequate number of soldiers intrusted
to him. Had there been a real Roman army, then Caelius would have been
afraid, he says, for his friend's life. As it is, he fears only for his
reputation, lest men should speak ill of him for not fighting, when to
fight was beyond his power.[91] The language here is so pretty that I am
tempted to think that Tiro must have had a hand in it. At Rome, we must
remember, the tidings as to Crassus were as yet uncertain. We cannot,
however, doubt that Caelius was in truth attached to Cicero.

But Cicero was forced to fight, not altogether unwillingly--not with the
Parthians, but with tribes which were revolting from Roman authority
because of the Parthian success. "It has turned out as you wished it,"
he says to Caelius--"a job just sufficient to give me a small coronet of
laurel." Hearing that men had risen in the Taurus range of mountains,
which divided his province from that of Syria, in which Bibulus was now
governor, he had taken such an army as he was able to collect to the
Amanus, a mountain belonging to that range, and was now writing from his
camp at Pindenissum, a place beyond his own province. Joking at his own
soldiering, he tells Caelius that he had astonished those around him by
his prowess. "Is this he whom we used to know in the city? Is this our
talkative Senator? You can understand the things they said.[92] * * *
When I got to the Amanus I was glad enough to find our friend Cassius
had beaten back the real Parthians from Antioch." But Cicero claims to
have done some gallant things: "I have harassed those men of Amanus who
are always troubling us. Many I have killed; some I have taken; the rest
are dispersed. I came suddenly upon their strongholds, and have got
possession of them. I was called 'Imperator' at the river Issus." It is
hardly necessary to explain, yet once again, that this title belonged
properly to no commander till it had been accorded to him by his own
soldiers on the field of battle.[93] He reminds Caelius that it was on
the Issus that Alexander had conquered Darius. Then he had sat down
before Pindenissum with all the machinery of a siege--with the turrets,
covered ways, and ramparts. He had not as yet quite taken the town. When
he had d