[278] Concerning his appeal to Pompey
two stories have been given to us, neither of which appears to be true.
Plutarch says that when Cicero had travelled out from Rome to Pompey's
Alban villa, Pompey ran out of the back-door to avoid meeting him.
Plutarch cared more for a good story than for accuracy, and is not
worthy of much credit as to details unless when corroborated. The other
account is based on Cicero's assertion that he did see Pompey on this
occasion. Nine or ten years after the meeting he refers to it in a
letter to Atticus, which leaves no doubt as to the fact. The story
founded on that letter declares that Cicero threw himself bodily at his
old friend's feet, and that Pompey did not lend a hand to raise him, but
told him simply that everything was in Caesar's hands. This narrative is,
I think, due to a misinterpretation of Cicero's words, though it is
given by a close translation of them. He is describing Pompey when Caesar
after his Gallic wars had crossed the Rubicon, and the two late
Triumvirates--the third having perished miserably in the East--were in
arms against each other. "Alter ardet furore et scelere" he says.[279]
Caesar is pressing on unscrupulous in his passion. "Alter is qui nos sibi
quondam ad pedes stratos ne sublevabat quidem, qui se nihil contra hujus
voluntatem aiebat facere posse." "That other one," he continues--meaning
Pompey, and pursuing his picture of the present contrast--"who in days
gone by would not even lift me when I lay at his feet, and told me that
he could do nothing but as Caesar wished it." This little supposed detail
of biography has been given, no doubt, from an accurate reading of the
words; but in it the spirit of the writer's mind as he wrote it has
surely been missed. The prostration of which he spoke, from which Pompey
would not raise him, the memory of which was still so bitter to him, was
not a prostration of the body. I hold it to have been impossible that
Cicero should have assumed such an attitude before Pompey, or that he
would so have written to Atticus had he done so. It would have been
neither Roman nor Ciceronian, as displayed by Cicero to Pompey. He had
gone to his old ally and told him of his trouble, and had no doubt
reminded him of those promises of assistance which Pompey had so often
made. Then Pompey had refused to help him, and had assured him, with too
much truth, that Caesar's will was everything. Again, we have to remember
that in judging of th