The war in Asia terminated, Pompey sent before him his lieutenant, Pupius Piso Calpurnianus, who was soliciting the consulship, and who for that reason requested an adjournment of the elections. This adjournment was granted, and Piso unanimously elected consul for the year 693,[1023] with M. Valerius Messala; to such a degree did the terror of Pompey’s name make every one eager to grant what he desired. For no one knew his designs; and it was feared lest, on his return, he should again march upon Rome at the head of his victorious army. But Pompey, having landed at Brundusium about the month of January, 693, disbanded his army, and arrived at Rome, escorted only by the citizens who had gone out in crowds to meet him.[1024]
After the first display of public gratitude, he found his reception different from that on which he had reckoned, and domestic griefs came to swell the catalogue of his disappointments. He had been informed of the scandalous conduct of his wife Mutia during his absence, and determined to repudiate her.[1025]
Envy, that scourge of a Republic, raged against him. The nobles did not conceal their jealousy: it seemed as though they were taking revenge for their own apprehensions, to which they were now adding their own feelings of personal resentment. Lucullus had not forgiven him for having frustrated his expectation of the command of the army of Asia. Crassus was jealous of his renown; Cato, always hostile to those who raised themselves above their fellows, could not be favourable to him, and had even refused him the hand of his niece; Metellus Creticus cherished a bitter remembrance of attempts which had been made to wrest from him the merit of conquering Crete;[1026] and Metellus Celer was offended at the repudiation of his sister Mutia.[1027] As for Cicero, whose opinion of men varied according to their more or less deference for his merit, he discovered that his hero of other days was destitute of rectitude and greatness of soul.[1028] Pompey, foreseeing the ill-feeling he was about to encounter, exerted all his influence, and spent a large sum of money to secure the election of Afranius, one of his old lieutenants, as consul. He reckoned upon him to obtain the two things which he desired most: a general approval of all his acts in the East, and a distribution of lands to his veterans. Notwithstanding violent opposition, Afranius was elected with Q. Metellus Celer. But, before proposing the laws which concerned him, Pompey, who till then had not entered Rome, demanded a triumph. It was granted him, but for two days only. However, the pageant was not less remarkable for its splendour. It was held on the 29th and 30th of September, 693.
Before him were carried boards on which were inscribed the names of the conquered countries, from Judæa to the Caucasus, and from the shores of the Bosphorus to the banks of the Euphrates; the names of the towns and the number of the vessels taken from the pirates; the names of thirty-nine towns re-peopled; the amount of wealth brought in to the treasury, amounting to 20,000 talents (more than 115 millions of francs [£4,600,000]), without counting his largesses to his soldiers, of whom he who received least had 1,500 drachmas (1,455 francs [£57]).[1029] The public revenues, which before Pompey’s time amounted only to fifty millions of drachmas (forty-eight millions and a half of francs [nearly two millions sterling]), reached the amount of eighty-one millions and a half (seventy-nine millions of francs [£3,160,000]). Among the precious objects that were exposed before the eyes of the Romans was the Dactylotheca (or collection of engraved stones) belonging to the King of Pontus;[1030] a chessboard made of only two precious stones, but which, nevertheless, measured four feet in length by three in breadth, ornamented with a moon in gold, weighing thirty pounds; three couches for dinner, of immense value; vases of gold and precious stones numerous enough to load nine sideboards; thirty-three chaplets of pearls; three gold statues, representing Minerva, Mars, and Apollo; a mountain of the same metal, on a square base, decorated with fruits of all kinds, and with figures of stags and lions, the whole encircled by a golden vine, a present from King Aristobulus; a miniature temple dedicated to the Muses, and provided with a clock; a couch of gold, said to have belonged to Darius, son of Hystaspes; murrhine vases;[1031] a statue in silver of Pharnaces, king of Pontus, the conqueror of Sinope, and the contemporary of Philip III. of Macedon;[1032] a silver statue of the last Mithridates, and a colossal bust of him in gold, eight cubits high, together with his throne and sceptre; chariots armed with scythes, and enriched with gilt ornaments;[1033] then, the portrait of Pompey himself, embroidered in pearls. Lastly, trees were now introduced for the first time as rare and precious objects: these were the ebony-tree and the shrub which produces balsam.[1034] Before the chariot of Pompey came the Cretan Lasthenes and Panares, taken from the triumph of Metellus Creticus;[1035] the chiefs of the pirates; the son of Tigranes, king of Armenia, his wife, and his daughter; the widow of the elder Tigranes, called Zosima; Olthaces, chief of the Colchians; Aristobulus, king of the Jews; the sister of Mithridates, with five of his sons; the wives of the chieftains of Scythia; the hostages of the Iberians and Albanians, and those of the princes of Commagene. Pompey was in a chariot, adorned with jewels, and dressed in the costume of Alexander the Great;[1036] and as he had already three times obtained the honours of a triumph for his successes in Africa, Europe, and Asia, a grand trophy was displayed, with this inscription, “Over the whole world!”[1037]
So much splendour flattered the national pride, without disarming the envious. Victories in the East had always been obtained without extraordinary efforts, and therefore people had always depreciated their merit, and Cato went so far as to say that in Asia a general had only women to fight against.[1038] In the Senate, Lucullus, and other influential men of consular rank, threw out the decree that was to ratify all the acts of Pompey; and yet, to refuse to ratify either the treaties concluded with the kings, or the exchange of the provinces, or the amount of tribute imposed upon the vanquished, was as though they questioned all that he had done. But they went still farther.
Towards the month of January, 694, the tribune L. Flavius proposed[1039] to purchase and appropriate to Pompey’s veterans, for purposes of colonisation, all the territory that had been declared public domain in the year 521, and since sold; and to divide among the poor citizens the ager publicus of Volaterræ and Arretium, cities of Etruria, which had been confiscated by Sylla, but not yet distributed.[1040] The expense entailed by these measures was to be defrayed by five years’ revenue of the conquered provinces.[1041] Cicero, who wished to gratify Pompey, without damaging the interests of those he termed his rich friends,[1042] proposed that the ager publicus should be left intact, but that other lands of equal value should be purchased. Nevertheless, he was in favour of the establishment of colonies, though two years before he had called the attention of his hearers to the danger of such establishments; he was ready to admit that that dangerous populace, those dregs of the city (sentina urbis), must be removed to a distance from Rome, though in former days he had engaged that same populace to remain in Rome, and enjoy their festivals, their games, and their rights of suffrage.[1043] Finally, he proposed to buy private estates, and leave the ager publicus intact; whereas, in his speech against Rullus, he had blamed the establishment of colonies on private estates as a violation of all precedent.[1044] The eloquence of the orator, which had been powerful enough to cause the rejection of the law of Rullus, was unsuccessful in obtaining the adoption of that of Flavius; it was attacked with such violence by the consul Metellus, that the tribune caused him to be put in prison; but this act of severity having met with a general disapproval, Pompey was alarmed at the scandal, and bade Flavius set the consul at liberty, and abandoned the law. Sensitive to so many insults, and seeing his prestige diminish, the conqueror of Mithridates regretted that he had disbanded his army, and determined to make common cause with Clodius, who then enjoyed an extraordinary popularity.[1045]
About the same period, Metellus Nepos, who had returned a second time to Italy with Pompey, was elected prætor, and obtained a law to abolish tolls throughout Italy, the exaction of which had hitherto given rise to loud complaints. This measure, which had probably been suggested by Pompey and Cæsar, met with general approval; yet the Senate made an unsuccessful attempt to have the name of the proposer erased from the law: which shows, as Dio Cassius says, that that assembly accepted nothing from its adversaries, not even an act of kindness.[1046]
Destiny regulates Events.
X. Thus all the forces of society, paralysed by intestine divisions, and powerless for good, appeared to revive only for the purpose of throwing obstacles in its way. Military glory and eloquence, those two instruments of Roman power, inspired only distrust and envy. The triumph of the generals was regarded not so much as a success for the Republic as a source of personal gratification. The gift of eloquence still exercised its ancient empire, so long as the orator remained upon the tribune; but scarcely had he stepped down before the impression he had made was gone; the people remained indifferent to brilliant displays of rhetoric that were employed to encourage selfish passions, and not to defend, as heretofore, the great interests of the fatherland.
It is well worthy of our attention that, when destiny is driving a state of things towards an aim, there is, by a law of fate, a concurrence of all forces in the same direction. Thither tend alike the attacks and the hopes of those who seek change; thither tend the fears and the resistance of those who would put a stop to every movement. After the death of Sylla, Cæsar was the only man who persevered in his endeavours to raise the standard of Marius. Hence nothing more natural than that his acts and speeches should bend in the same direction. But the fact on which we ought to fix our attention is, the spectacle of the partisans of resistance and the system of Sylla, the opponents of all innovation, helping, unconsciously, the progress of the events which smoothed for Cæsar the way to supreme power.