ttle of Pharsalus; indeed he bore himself no longer
as a client of the Romans but as an equal ally or even as a protector,
and took it upon him, for example, to coin Roman silver money
with his name and device; nay, he even raised a claim to be the sole
wearer of purple in the camp, and suggested to the Roman commanders
that they should lay aside their purple mantle of office.
Further Metellus Scipio demanded the supreme command for himself,
because Pompeius had recognized him in the Thessalian campaign
as on a footing of equality, more from the consideration that he was
his son-in-law than on military grounds. The like demand was raised
by Varus as the governor--self-nominated, it is true--of Africa,
seeing that the war was to be waged in his province. Lastly the army
desired for its leader the propraetor Marcus Cato. Obviously
it was right. Cato was the only man who possessed the requisite
devotedness, energy, and authority for the difficult office;
if he was no military man, it was infinitely better to appoint
as commander-in-chief a non-military man who understood how to listen
to reason and make his subordinates act, than an officer of untried
capacity like Varus, or even one of tried incapacity like Metellus
Scipio. But the decision fell at length on this same Scipio,
and it was Cato himself who mainly determined that decision.
He did so, not because he felt himself unequal to such a task,
or because his vanity found its account rather in declining
than in accepting; still less because he loved or respected Scipio,
with whom he on the contrary was personally at variance,
and who with his notorious inefficiency had attained a certain importance
merely in virtue of his position as father-in-law to Pompeius;
but simply and solely because his obstinate legal formalism chose
rather to let the republic go to ruin in due course of law
than to save it in an irregular way. When after the battle of Pharsalus
he met with Marcus Cicero at Corcyra, he had offered to hand over
the command in Corcyra to the latter--who was still from the time
of his Cilician administration invested with the rank of general--
as the officer of higher standing according to the letter of the law,
and by this readiness had driven the unfortunate advocate,
who now cursed a thousand times his laurels from the Arnanus,
almost to despair; but he had at the same time astonished all men
of any tolerable discernment. The same principles were applied