d that the people
were disinclined to espouse his cause, or whether the whole movement was
a feint to direct Caesar's attention to Macedon as the field of his
operations, in order that he might escape more secretly and safely
beyond the sea, can not now be ascertained.

[Sidenote: Pompey's wife Cornelia.]
[Sidenote: Her beauty and accomplishments.]

Pompey's wife Cornelia was on the island of Lesbos, at Mitylene, near
the western coast of Asia Minor. She was a lady of distinguished beauty,
and of great intellectual superiority and moral worth. She was extremely
well versed in all the learning of the times, and yet was entirely free
from those peculiarities and airs which, as her historian says, were
often observed in learned ladies in those days. Pompey had married her
after the death of Julia, Caesar's daughter. They were strongly devoted
to each other. Pompey had provided for her a beautiful retreat on the
island of Lesbos, where she was living in elegance and splendor,
beloved for her own intrinsic charms, and highly honored on account of
the greatness and fame of her husband. Here she had received from time
to time glowing accounts of his success all exaggerated as they came to
her, through the eager desire of the narrators to give her pleasure.

[Sidenote: Pompey's arrival at Mitylene.]
[Sidenote: His meeting with Cornelia.]

From this high elevation of honor and happiness the ill-fated Cornelia
suddenly fell, on the arrival of Pompey's solitary vessel at Mitylene,
bringing as it did, at the same time, both the first intelligence of her
husband's fall, and himself in person, a ruined and homeless fugitive
and wanderer. The meeting was sad and sorrowful. Cornelia was
overwhelmed at the suddenness and violence of the shock which it brought
her, and Pompey lamented anew the dreadful disaster that he had
sustained, at finding how inevitably it must involve his beloved wife as
well as himself in its irreparable ruin.

[Sidenote: Pompey gathers a little fleet.]

The pain, however, was not wholly without some mingling of pleasure. A
husband finds a strange sense of protection and safety in the presence
and sympathy of an affectionate wife in the hour of his calamity. She
can, perhaps do nothing, but her mute and sorrowful concern and pity
comfort and reassure him. Cornelia, however, was able to render her
husband some essential aid. She resolved immediately to accompany him
wherever he should go; and, by their join