high opinion Pompey's soldiers had
of themselves, that it was impossible to keep them within bounds. They
cried out with one voice, "Caesar is fled." Some called upon the general
to pursue; some to pass over into Italy. Others sent their friends and
servants to Rome, to engage homes near the forum, for the convenience of
soliciting the great offices of state. And not a few went of their
own accord to Cornelia, who had been privately lodged in Lesbos, to
congratulate her upon the conclusion of the war.

While he thus softly followed the enemy's steps, a complaint was raised
against him, and urged with much clamor, that he was not exercising his
generalship upon Caesar, but upon the Senate and the whole commonwealth,
in order that he might forever keep the command in his hands, and have
those for his guards and servants who had a right to govern the world.
Domitius Aenobarbus, to increase the odium, always called him Agamemnon,
or king of kings. Favonius piqued him no less with a jest, than others
by their unseasonable severity; he went about crying, "My friends, we
shall eat no figs in Tusculum this year."

These and many other like sallies of ridicule had such an effect upon
Pompey, who was ambitious of being spoken well of by the world, and had
too much deference for the opinions of his friends, that he gave up his
own better judgment, to follow them in the career of their false hopes
and prospects. A thing which would have been unpardonable in the pilot
or master of a ship, much more in the commander-in-chief of so many
nations and such numerous armies. He had often commended the physician
who gives no indulgence to the whimsical longings of his patients, and
yet he humored the sickly cravings of his army, and was afraid to give
them pain, though necessary for the preservation of their life and
being. For who can say that army was in a sound and healthy state, when
some of the officers went about the camp canvassing for the offices of
consul and praetor; and others, namely, Spinther, Domitius, and Scipio,
were engaged in quarrels and cabals about Caesar's high-priesthood, as
if their adversary had been only a Tigranes, a king of Armenia, or a
prince of the Nabathaeans; and not that Caesar and that army who had
stormed one thousand cities, subdued above three hundred nations,
gained numberless battles of the Germans and Gauls, taken one million
prisoners, and killed as many fairly in the field. Notwithstanding all
thi