Meanwhile Tigranes, King of Armenia, had been developing a powerful monarchy; and mutual distrust had brought on another war with Mithridates, successfully conducted by Lucullus. Out of this war arose a struggle with Tigranes, on whom an overwhelming defeat was inflicted at Tigranocerta. But the brilliant achievements of Lucullus were nullified by the mutinous conduct of the troops, and the factious conduct of the home government. The gross inefficiency of that government was shown by the immense extension of organised piracy, and by the famous slave revolt under Spartacus, which seriously endangered the state.
Pompeius on his return from Spain was barred on technical grounds from the triumph and the consulship which he demanded. He was thus driven into an alliance with the democratic party, and with Crassus. The result was the fall of the Sullan constitution, and the restoration of checks on the power of the senate. Pompeius might have grasped a military despotism; he did not, but he did receive extraordinary powers for dealing with the whole Eastern question, and when that work was settled successfully, he would be able to dictate his own terms.
Pompeius began his task by a swift and crushing blow against the pirate cities and fleets, which broke up the organisation. He crushed Mithridates in one campaign, and received the submission of Tigranes; Mithridates soon after fell by his own hand, the victim of an insurrection. Anarchy in Syria warranted Pompeius in annexing the Seleucid dominion. The whole of the nearer East was now a part of the Roman empire; and was thenceforth ruled not as protectorates, but as a group of provinces. Egypt alone was not incorporated.
Meanwhile, the democratic party at Rome were dominant, though their policy was inconsistent and opportunist. Probably the leading men, such as Crassus and the rising Gaius, Julius Cæsar, stood aside from the wilder schemes, such as the Catilinarian conspiracies, but secretly fostered them. Catiline's projects were betrayed, and the illegal execution of the captured conspirators by the consul Cicero was hailed by Cato and the senatorial party as a triumph of patriotic statesmanship. Catiline himself was crushed in the field.
The definite fact emerged, that neither the senatorial nor the democratic party could establish a strong government; that would be possible only for a military monarchy--a statesman with a policy and an irresistible, force at his back. But Pompeius lacked the courage and skill. Cæsar, as yet, lacked the military force. Pompeius, on his return from the East, again allied himself with Crassus and Cæsar, whose object was to acquire for himself the opportunity which Pompeius would not grasp. The alliance gave Pompeius the land allotments he required for his soldiers, and to Cæsar the consulship followed by a prolonged governorship of Gaul.
The conquest and organisation of Gaul was an end in itself, a necessary defence against barbarian pressure. Cæsar's operations there were invaluable to the empire; incidentally, they enabled him to become master of it. Cæsar has left his own record. Gaul was transformed into a barrier against the Teutonic migration. But Pompeius, nominally holding a far greater position, proved incapable of controlling the situation in Rome; he could not even suppress the demagogue Clodius, while the prestige of his military exploits was waning. Fear of the power of the Triumvirate was driving moderate men to the senatorial part; that party, without an efficient leader, began to find in Pompeius rather in ally against the more dangerous Cæsar than an enemy.
But they would not concede him the powers he required; which might yet be turned to the uses of his colleagues in the Triumvirate; he could not afford to challenge Cæsar; and Cæsar adroitly used the situation to secure for himself a prolongation of his Gallic command. The completion of his work there was to have precedence of his personal ambitions. Crassus was sent to the Eastern command; and Pompeius remained in Italy, while nominally appointed to Spain.
Pompeius, indeed, attained a predominance in Rome which enabled him to secure temporarily dictatorial powers which were employed to counteract the electoral machinery of the republican party; but he had not the qualifications or the inclination to play the demagogue, and could not unite his aspirations as a restorer of law and order with effective party leadership. Crassus disappeared; his armies in the East met with a complete disaster at Carrhæ, and he took his own life. Cæsar and Pompeius were left; Pompeius was not content that Cæsar should stand on a real equality with him, and the inevitable rupture came.
In effect Pompeius used his dictatorship to extend his own military command and to curtail Cæsar's. The position resolved itself into a rivalry between the two; Cæsar declaring as always for the democracy, Pompeius now assuming the championship of the aristocracy, and the guardianship of the constitution.
For Cæsar the vital point now was that his own command should not terminate till he exchanged it for a fresh consulship. As the law now stood, he could not obtain his election without resigning his command beforehand. But he succeeded in forcing Pompeius to break the law; and in making the official government responsible for declaring war. He offered a compromise, perhaps, in the certainty that it would be rejected--as it was. He was virtually declared a public enemy; and he struck at once.