performing upon his
fellow-creatures, merely to gratify his insane love of dominion.

CHAPTER V.

POMPEY.

[Sidenote: Pompey.]

While Caesar had thus been rising to so high an elevation, there was
another Roman general who had been, for nearly the same period, engaged,
in various other quarters of the world, in acquiring, by very similar
means, an almost equal renown. This general was Pompey. He became, in
the end, Caesar's great and formidable rival. In order that the reader
may understand clearly the nature of the great contest which sprung up
at last between these heroes, we must now go back and relate some of the
particulars of Pompey's individual history down to the time of the
completion of Caesar's conquests in Gaul.

[Sidenote: His birth.]
[Sidenote: Pompey's personal appearance.]

Pompey was a few years older than Caesar, having been born in 106 B.C.
His father was a Roman general, and the young Pompey was brought up in
camp. He was a young man of very handsome figure and countenance, and of
very agreeable manners. His hair curled slightly over his forehead, and
he had a dark and intelligent eye, full of vivacity and meaning. There
was, besides, in the expression of his face, and in his air and address,
a certain indescribable charm, which prepossessed every one strongly in
his favor, and gave him, from his earliest years, a great personal
ascendency over all who knew him.

[Sidenote: Plans to assassinate him.]

Notwithstanding this popularity, however, Pompey did not escape, even in
very early life, incurring his share of the dangers which seemed to
environ the path of every public man in those distracted times. It will
be recollected that, in the contests between Marius and Sylla, Caesar
had joined the Marian faction. Pompey's father, on the other hand, had
connected himself with that of Sylla. At one time, in the midst of these
wars, when Pompey was very young, a conspiracy was formed to assassinate
his father by burning him in his tent, and Pompey's comrade, named
Terentius, who slept in the same tent with him, had been bribed to kill
Pompey himself at the same time, by stabbing him in his bed. Pompey
contrived to discover this plan, but, instead of being at all
discomposed by it, he made arrangements for a guard about his father's
tent and then went to supper as usual with Terentius, conversing with
him all the time in even a more free and friendly manner than usual.
That night he arranged h