ears
her senior. She certainly had been a strong bond of union between Caesar
and Pompey; so much so that we are surprised that such a feeling should
have been so powerful among the Romans of the time. "Concordiae pignus,"
a "pledge of friendship," she is called by Paterculus, who tells us in
the same sentence that the Triumvirate had no other bond to hold it
together.[51] Whether the friendship might have remained valid had Julia
lived we cannot say; but she died, and the two friends became enemies.
From the moment of Julia's death there was no Triumvirate.

The other accident was equally fatal to the bond of union which had
bound the three men together. Late in the year, after his Consulship,
B.C. 54, Crassus had gone to his Syrian government with the double
intention of increasing his wealth and rivalling the military glories of
Caesar and Pompey. In the following year he became an easy victim to
Eastern deceit, and was destroyed by the Parthians, with his son and the
greater part of the Roman army which had been intrusted to him.[52] We
are told that Crassus at last destroyed himself. I doubt, however,
whether there was enough of patriotism alive among Romans at the time to
create the feeling which so great a loss and so great a shame should
have occasioned. As far as we can learn, the destruction of Crassus and
his legions did not occasion so much thought in Rome as the breaking up
of the Triumvirate.

Cicero's daughter Tullia was now a second time without a husband. She
was the widow of her first husband Piso; had then, B.C. 56, married
Crassipes, and had been divorced. Of him we have heard nothing, except
that he was divorced. A doubt has been thrown on the fact whether she
was in truth ever married to Crassipes. We learn from letters, both to
his brother and to Atticus, that Cicero was contented with the match,
when it was made, and did his best to give the lady a rich dowry.[53]

In this year Cicero was elected into the College of Augurs, to fill the
vacancy made by the death of young Crassus, who had been killed with his
father in Parthia. The reader will remember that he had in a joking
manner expressed a desire for the office. He now obtained it without any
difficulty, and certainly without any sacrifice of his principle. It had
formerly been the privilege of the augurs to fill up the vacancies in
their own college, but the right had been transferred to the people. It
was now conferred upon Cicero without