be done them.) These things
gained him the love and admiration of the public; but he incurred their
displeasure again, by leaving his provinces and armies entirely to his
friends and lieutenants, and roving about Italy with his wife from
one villa to another. The strong attachment of Julia appeared on the
occasion of an election of aediles. The people came to blows, and some
were killed so near Pompey that he was covered with blood, and forced to
change his clothes. There was a great crowd and tumult about his door,
when his servants went home with a bloody robe; and Julia, happening
to see it, fainted away and was with difficulty restored. Shortly after
Julia died, and the alliance which had rather covered than restrained
the ambition of the two great competitors for power was now no more.
To add to the misfortune, news was brought soon after that Crassus was
slain by the Parthians; and in him another great obstacle to a civil war
was removed. Out of fear of him, they had both kept some measures with
each other. But when fortune had carried off the champion who could take
up the conqueror, we may say with the comic poet--

High spirits of emprise
Elates each chief; they oil their brawny limbs,
and dip their hands in dust.

So little able is fortune to fill the capacities of the human mind; when
such a weight of power, and extent of command, could not satisfy the
ambition of two men. They had heard and read that the gods had divided
the universe into three shares,

(Plutarch alludes here to a passage in the fifteenth book of the Iliad,
where Neptune says to Iris--

Assign'd by lot our triple rule we know;
Infernal Pluto sways the shades below;
O'er the wide clouds, and o'er the starry plain,
Ethereal Jove extends his high domain;
My court beneath the hoary waves I keep,
And hush the roarings of the sacred deep.)

and each was content with that which fell to his lot, and yet these
men could not think the Roman empire sufficient for two of them. Such
anarchy and confusion took place that numbers began to talk boldly of
setting up a dictator. Cato, now fearing he should be overborne, was of
opinion that it were better to give Pompey some office whose authority
was limited by law, than to intrust him with absolute power. Bibulus,
though Pompey's declared enemy, moved in full senate, that he should be
appointed sole consul. "For by that means," said he, "the commonweal