on, which moved
through the streets of Rome on the 28th and 29th Sept. 693--
the forty-sixth birthday of Pompeius the Great--adorned, to say nothing
of jewels of all sorts, by the crown insignia of Mithradates
and by the children of the three mightiest kings of Asia, Mithradates,
Tigranes, and Phraates; it rewarded its general, who had conquered
twenty-two kings, with regal honours and bestowed on him the golden
chaplet and the insignia of the magistracy for life. The coins struck
in his honour exhibit the globe itself placed amidst the triple
laurels brought home from the three continents, and surmounted
by the golden chaplet conferred by the burgesses on the man
who had triumphed over Africa, Spain, and Asia. It need excite
no surprise, if in presence of such childish acts of homage voices
were heard of an opposite import. Among the Roman world of quality
it was currently affirmed that the true merit of having subdued
the east belonged to Lucullus, and that Pompeius had only gone thither
to supplant Lucullus and to wreathe around his own brow the laurels
which another hand had plucked. Both statements were totally
erroneous: it was not Pompeius but Glabrio that was sent to Asia
to relieve Lucullus, and, bravely as Lucullus had fought, it was
a fact that, when Pompeius took the supreme command, the Romans
had forfeited all their earlier successes and had not a foot's breadth
of Pontic soil in their possession. More pointed and effective
was the ridicule of the inhabitants of the capital, who failed not
to nickname the mighty conqueror of the globe after the great powers
which he had conquered, and saluted him now as "conqueror of Salem,"
now as "emir" (-Arabarches-), now as the Roman Sampsiceramus.

Lucullus and Pompeius as Administrators

The unprejudiced judge will not agree either with those exaggerations
or with these disparagements. Lucullus and Pompeius, in subduing
and regulating Asia, showed themselves to be, not heroes
and state-creators, but sagacious and energetic army-leaders
and governors. As general Lucullus displayed no common talents
and a self-confidence bordering on rashness, while Pompeius displayed
military judgment and a rare self-restraint; for hardly
has any general with such forces and a position so wholly free
ever acted so cautiously as Pompeius in the east. The most brilliant
undertakings, as it were, offered themselves to him on all sides;
he was free to start for the Cimmerian Bo