ion: Julius Caesar.]

CHAPTER XXXII.

FROM POMPEY'S RETURN FROM THE EAST TO CICERO'S BANISHMENT AND RECALL.
B.C. 62-57.

Pompey, as we have already seen, reached Italy in B.C. 62. It was
generally feared that he would seize the supreme power, but he soon
calmed these apprehensions by disbanding his army immediately after
landing at Brundusium. He did not, however, enter Rome in triumph till
the 30th of September, B.C. 61. The triumph lasted two days, and
surpassed in splendor every spectacle that Rome had yet seen. The
tablets carried in the procession, on which his victories were
emblazoned, declared that he had taken 1000 strong fortresses, 900
towns, and 800 ships; that he had founded 39 cities; that he had raised
the revenue of the Roman people from 59 millions to 85 millions; and
that he had brought into the public treasury 20,000 talents. Before his
triumphal car walked 324 captive princes.

With this triumph the first and most glorious part of Pompey's life may
be said to have ended. Hitherto he had been employed almost exclusively
in war; but now he was called upon to play a prominent part in the civil
commotions of the Republic--a part for which neither his natural talents
nor his previous habits had in the least fitted him. From the death of
Sulla to the present time, a period of nearly twenty years, he had been
unquestionably the first man in the Roman world, but he did not retain
much longer this proud position, and soon discovered that the genius of
Caesar had reduced him to a second place in the state. It would seem as
if Pompey, on his return to Rome, hardly knew to which party to attach
himself. He had been appointed to the command against the pirates and
Mithridates in opposition to the aristocracy, and they still regarded
him with jealousy and distrust. He could not, therefore, ally himself to
them, especially too as some of their most influential leaders, such as
M. Crassus and L. Lucullus, were his personal enemies. At the same time
he seems to have been indisposed to unite himself to the popular party,
which had risen into importance during his absence in the East, and over
which Caesar possessed unbounded influence. But the object which engaged
the immediate attention of Pompey was to obtain from the Senate a
ratification of his acts in Asia, and an assignment of lands which he
had promised to his veterans. In order to secure this object, he had
purchased the Consulship for one of his officer