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himself equal and familiar even to the lowest of the soldiers, and obliging them by all his good offices and his money: so that he soon acquired the favour of his army, with the character of a brave and skilful commander; and lived to drive Marius himself, banished and proscribed, into that very province where he had been contemned by him at first as his quæstor. He had a wonderful faculty of concealing his passions and purposes; and was so different from himself in different circumstances, that he seemed as it were to be two men in one: no man was ever more mild and moderate before victory; none more bloody and cruel after it. In war, he practised the same art that he had seen so successful to Marius, of raising a kind of enthusiasm and contempt of danger in his army, by the forgery of auspices and divine admonitions; for which end, he carried always about with him a little statue of Apollo, taken from the temple of Delphi; and whenever he had resolved to give battle, used to embrace it in sight of the soldiers, and beg the speedy confirmation of its promises to him. From an uninterrupted course of success and prosperity, he assumed a surname, unknown before to the Romans, of Felix, or the Fortunate; and would have been fortunate indeed, says Velleius, if his life had ended with his victories. Pliny calls it a wicked title, drawn from the blood and oppression of his country; for which posterity would think him more unfortunate, even than those whom he had put to death. He had one felicity, however, peculiar to himself, of being the only man in history, in whom the odium of the most barbarous cruelties was extinguished by the

glory of his great acts. Cicero, though he had a good opinion of his cause, yet detested the inhumanity of his victory, and never speaks of him with respect, nor of his government but as a proper tyranny; calling him, a master of three most pestilent vices, luxury, avarice, cruelty.' He was the first of his family whose dead body was burnt; for, having ordered Marius's remains to be taken out of his grave, and thrown into the river Anio, he was apprehensive of the same insult upon his own, if left to the usual way of burial. A little before his death, he made his own epitaph, the sum of which was, that no man had ever gone beyond him, in doing good to his friends, or hurt to his enemies.' Middleton.

CHARACTER OF POMPEY.

POMPEY had early acquired the surname of the Great, by that sort of merit which, from the constitution of the republic, necessarily made him great; a fame and success in war, superior to what Rome had ever known in the most celebrated of her generals. He had triumphed, at three several times, over the three different parts of the known world. Europe, Asia, Africa: and by his victories had almost doubled the extent, as well as the revenues of the Roman dominion; for, as he declared to the people on his return from the Mithridatic war, he had found the lesser Asia the boundary, but left it the middle of their empire. He was about six years older than Cæsar; and while Cæsar, immersed in pleasures, oppressed

with debts, and suspected by all honest men, was hardly able to show his head, Pompey was flourishing in the height of power and glory; and, by the consent of all parties, placed at the head of the republic. This was the post that his ambition seemed to aim at, to be the first man in Rome; the leader, not the tyrant of his country; for he more than once had it in his power to have made himself the master of it without any risk, if his virtue, or his phlegm at least, had not restrained him: but he lived in a perpetual expectation of receiving from the gift of the people, what he did not care to seize by force; and, by fomenting the disorders of the city, hoped to drive them to the necessity of creating him dictator. It is an observation of all the historians, that while Cæsar made no difference of power, whether it was conferred or usurped, whether over those who loved, or those who feared him; Pompey seemed to value none but what was offered; nor to have any desire to govern, but with the good-will of the governed. What leisure he found from his wars, he employed in the study of polite letters, and especially of eloquence, in which he would have acquired great fame, if his genius had not drawn him to the more dazzling glory of arms; yet he pleaded several causes with applause, in the defence of his friends and clients; and some of them in conjunction with Cicero. His language was copious and elevated; his sentiments just; his voice sweet; his action noble, and full of dignity. But his talents were better formed for arms than the gown; for, though in both he observed the same discipline, a perpetual modesty, temperance, and

gravity of outward behaviour; yet in the licence of camps the example was more rare and striking. His person was extremely graceful, and imprinting respect; yet with an air of reserved haughtiness, which became the general better than the citizen. His parts were plausible, rather than great; specious, rather than penetrating; and his views of politics but narrow; for his chief instrument of governing was dissimulation; yet he had not always the art to conceal his real sentiments. As he was a better soldier than a statesman, so what he gained in the camp he usually lost in the city; and though adored when abroad, was often affronted and mor tified at home, till the imprudent opposition of the senate drove him to that alliance with Crassus and Cæsar, which proved fatal both to himself and the republic. He took in these two, not as the partners, but the ministers rather of his power; that by giving them some share with him, he might make his own authority uncontrollable: he had no reason to apprehend that they could ever prove his rivals; since neither of them had any credit or character of that kind, which alone could raise them above the laws; a superior fame and expe rience in war, with the militia of the empire at their devotion; all this was purely his own; till, by cherishing Cæsar, and throwing into his hands the only thing which he wanted, arms and military command, he made him at last too strong for himself, and never began to fear him till it was too late. Cicero warmly dissuaded both his union and his breach with Cæsar; and after the rupture, as warmly still, the thought of giving him battle: if any of these counsels had been followed, Pompey

had preserved his life and honour, and the republic its liberty. But he was urged to his fate by a natural superstition, and attention to those vain auguries, with which he was flattered by all the Haruspices: he had seen the same temper in Marius and Sylla, and observed the happy effects of it but they assumed it only out of policy, he out of principle: they used it to animate their soldiers, when they had found a probable opportunity of fighting: but he, against all prudence and probability, was encouraged by it to fight to his own ruin. He saw his mistakes at last, when it was out of his power to correct them; and in his wretched flight from Pharsalia, was forced to confess, that he had trusted too much to his hopes; and that Cicero had judged better, and seen further into things than he. The resolution of seeking refuge in Egypt finished the sad catastrophe of this great man; the father of the reigning prince had been highly obliged to him for his protection at Rome, and restoration to his kingdom; and the son had sent a considerable fleet to his assistance in the present war; but in this ruin of his fortunes, what gratitude was there to be expected from a court governed by eunuchs and mercenary Greeks? all whose politics turned, not on the honour of the king, but the establishment of their own power; which was likely to be eclipsed by the admission of Pompey. How happy had it been for him to have died in that sickness, when all Italy was putting up vows and prayers for his safety! or, if he had fallen by the chance of war, on the plains of Pharsalia, in the defence of his country's liberty, he had died still glorious, though unfortunate; but,

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