ciless exposure of its perplexity
and weakness. Where the humiliation of the overthrown government
and similar matters of little moment were concerned, it was great
and potent; but every one of its attempts to attain a real
political success had proved a downright failure. Its relation
to Pompeius was as false as pitiful. While it was loading him
with panegyrics and demonstrations of homage, it was concocting
against him one intrigue after another; and one after another,
like soap-bubbles, they burst of themselves. The general of the east
and of the seas, far from standing on his defence against them,
appeared not even to observe all the busy agitation, and to obtain
his victories over the democracy as Herakles gained his over
the Pygmies, without being himself aware of it. The attempt to kindle
civil war had miserably failed; if the anarchist section
had at least displayed some energy, the pure democracy, while knowing
doubtless how to hire conspirators, had not known how to lead
them or to save them or to die with them. Even the old languid
oligarchy, strengthened by the masses passing over to it
from the ranks of the democracy and above all by the--in this affair
unmistakeable--identity of its interests and those of Pompeius,
had been enabled to suppress this attempt at revolution and thereby
to achieve yet a last victory over the democracy. Meanwhile king
Mithradates was dead, Asia Minor and Syria were regulated,
and the return of Pompeius to Italy might be every moment expected.
The decision was not far off; but was there in fact still room
to speak of a decision between the general who returned more famous
and mightier than ever, and the democracy humbled beyond parallel
and utterly powerless? Crassus prepared to embark his family
and his gold and to seek an asylum somewhere in the east;
and even so elastic and so energetic a nature as that of Caesar seemed
on the point of giving up the game as lost. In this year (691)
occurred his candidature for the place of -pontifex maximus-;(22)
when he left his dwelling on the morning of the election,
he declared that, if he should fail in this also, he would
never again cross the threshold of his house.

CHAPTER VI

Retirement of Pompeius and Coalition of the Pretenders

Pompeius in the East

When Pompeius, after having transacted the affairs committed
to his charge, again turned his eyes homeward, he found for the second
time the diadem at his feet. F