sporus and for the Red
Sea; he had opportunity of declaring war against the Parthians;
the revolted provinces of Egypt invited him to dethrone king
Ptolemaeus who was not recognized by the Romans, and to carry
out the testament of Alexander; but Pompeius marched neither
to Panticapaeum nor to Petra, neither to Ctesiphon nor to Alexandria;
throughout he gathered only those fruits which of themselves fell
to his hand. In like manner he fought all his battles by sea
and land with a crushing superiority of force. Had this moderation
proceeded from the strict observance of the instructions given
to him, as Pompeius was wont to profess, or even from a perception
that the conquests of Rome must somewhere find a limit and that
fresh accessions of territory were not advantageous to the state,
it would deserve a higher praise than history confers on the most
talented officer; but constituted as Pompeius was, his self-
restraint was beyond doubt solely the result of his peculiar want
of decision and of initiative--defects, indeed, which were in his
case far more useful to the state than the opposite excellences
of his predecessor. Certainly very grave errors were perpetrated
both by Lucullus and by Pompeius. Lucullus reaped their fruits himself,
when his imprudent conduct wrested from him all the results
of his victories; Pompeius left it to his successors to bear
the consequences of his false policy towards the Parthians. He might
either have made war on the Parthians, if he had had the courage
to do so, or have maintained peace with them and recognized,
as he had promised, the Euphrates as boundary; he was too timid
for the former course, too vain for the latter, and so he resorted
to the silly perfidy of rendering the good neighbourhood,
which the court of Ctesiphon desired and on its part practised,
impossible through the most unbounded aggressions, and yet allowing
the enemy to choose of themselves the time for rupture and retaliation.
As administrator of Asia Lucullus acquired a more than princely
wealth; and Pompeius also received as reward for its organization
large sums in cash and still more considerable promissory notes
from the king of Cappadocia, from the rich city of Antioch,
and from other lords and communities. But such exactions had become
almost a customary tax; and both generals showed themselves at any rate
to be not altogether venal in questions of greater importance,
and, if possible, got themselves pa