t seemed as if he could not but become what the instinct
of the multitude even now designated him--the absolute ruler
of the mightiest state in the civilized world. Already the whole mass
of the servile crowded around the future monarch. Already his weaker
opponents were seeking their last resource in a new coalition;
Crassus, full of old and recent jealousy towards the younger rival
who so thoroughly outstripped him, made approaches to the senate
and attempted by unprecedented largesses to attach to himself
the multitude of the capital--as if the oligarchy which Crassus himself
had helped to break down, and the ever ungrateful multitude,
would have been able to afford any protection whatever against
the veterans of the Spanish army. For a moment it seemed as if
the armies of Pompeius and Crassus would come to blows before
the gates of the capital.

Retirement of Pompeius

But the democrats averted this catastrophe by their sagacity
and their pliancy. For their party too, as well as for the senate
and Crassus, it was all-important that Pompeius should not seize
the dictatorship; but with a truer discernment of their own weakness
and of the character of their powerful opponent their leaders tried
the method of conciliation. Pompeius lacked no condition
for grasping at the crown except the first of all--proper kingly
courage. We have already described the man--with his effort to be
at once loyal republican and master of Rome, with his vacillation
and indecision, with his pliancy that concealed itself
under the boasting of independent resolution. This was the first
great trial to which destiny subjected him; and he failed to stand it.
The pretext under which Pompeius refused to dismiss the army was,
that he distrusted Crassus and therefore could not take the initiative
in disbanding the soldiers. The democrats induced Crassus to make
gracious advances in the matter, and to offer the hand of peace
to his colleague before the eyes of all; in public and in private they
besought the latter that to the double merit of having vanquished
the enemy and reconciled the parties he would add the third and yet
greater service of preserving internal peace to his country,
and banishing the fearful spectre of civil war with which
they were threatened. Whatever could tell on a vain, unskilful,
vacillating man--all the flattering arts of diplomacy, all the theatrical
apparatus of patriotic enthusiasm--was put in motion to obtain