been annexed as the conduct of the Mithradatic war to the razzia against the pirates.  However much the opposition to the new dynasts had gained ground in recent years, the majority of the senate was still, when this matter came to be discussed in Sept. 697, under the constraint of the terror excited by Caesar.  It obsequiously accepted the project in principle, and that on the proposition of Marcus Cicero, who was expected to give, and gave, in this case the first proof of the pliableness learned by him in exile.  But in the settlement of the details very material portions were abated from the original plan, which the tribune of the people Gaius Messius submitted.  Pompeius obtained neither free control over the treasury, nor legions and ships of his own, nor even an authority superior to that of the governors; but they contented themselves with granting to him, for the purpose of his organizing due supplies for the capital, considerable sums, fifteen adjutants, and in allaffairs elating to the supply of grain full proconsular power throughout the Roman dominions for the next five years, and with having this decree confirmed by the burgesses.  There were many different reasons which led to this alteration, almost equivalent to a rejection, of the original plan:  a regard to Caesar, with reference to whom the most timid could not but have the greatest scruples in investing his colleague not merely with equal but with superior authority in Gaul itself; the concealed opposition of Pompeius’ hereditary enemy and reluctant ally Crassus, to whom Pompeius himself attributed or professed to attribute primarily the failure of his plan; the antipathy of the republican opposition in the senate to any decree which really or nominally enlarged the authority of the regents; lastly and mainly, the incapacity of Pompeius himself, who even after having been compelled to act could not prevail on himself to acknowledge his own action, but chose always to bring forward his real design as it were in incognito by means of his friends, while he himself in his well-known modesty declared his willingness to be content with even less.  No wonder that they took him at his word, and gave him the less.

Egyptian Expedition

Pompeius was nevertheless glad to have found at any rate a serious employment, and above all a fitting pretext for leaving the capital.  He succeeded, moreover, in providing it with ampler and cheaper supplies, although not without the provinces severely feeling the reflex effect.  But he had missed his real object; the proconsular title, which he had a right to bear in all the provinces, remained an empty name, so long as he had not troops of his own at his disposal.  Accordingly he soon afterwards got a second proposition made to the senate, that it should confer on him the charge of conducting back the expelled king of Egypt, if necessary by force of arms, to his home.  But the more that his urgent need of the senate became evident, the senators received