of efficient soldiers and capable officers, especially
those belonging to the former Spanish army; but the
number of those who came to serve and fight was just
as small as that of the generals of quality who called
themselves proconsuls and imperators with as good
title as Pompeius, and of the genteel lords who took
part in active military service more or less reluctantly,
was alarmingly great. Through these the mode
of life in the capital was introduced into the camp,
not at all to the advantage of the army; the tents
of such grandees were graceful bowers, the ground
elegantly covered with fresh turf, the walls clothed
with ivy; silver plate stood on the table, and the
wine-cup often circulated there even in broad daylight.
Those fashionable warriors formed a singular contrast
with Caesar’s daredevils, who ate coarse bread
from which the former recoiled, and who, when that
failed, devoured even roots and swore that they would
rather chew the bark of trees than desist from the
enemy. While, moreover, the action of Pompeius
was hampered by the necessity of having regard to
the authority of a collegiate board personally disinclined
to him, this embarrassment was singularly increased
when the senate of emigrants took up its abode almost
in his very headquarters and all the venom of the
emigrants now found vent in these senatorial sittings.
Lastly there was nowhere any man of mark, who could
have thrown his own weight into the scale against
all these preposterous doings. Pompeius himself
was intellectually far too secondary for that purpose,
and far too hesitating, awkward, and reserved.
Marcus Cato would have had at least the requisite
moral authority, and would not have lacked the good
will to support Pompeius with it; but Pompeius, instead
of calling him to his assistance, out of distrustful
jealousy kept him in the background, and preferred
for instance to commit the highly important chief
command of the fleet to the in every respect incapable
Marcus Bibulus rather than to Cato.
The Legions of Pompeius
While Pompeius thus treated the political aspect of
his position with his characteristic perversity, and
did his best to make what was already bad in itself
still worse, he devoted himself on the other hand
with commendable zeal to his duty of giving military
organization to the considerable but scattered forces
of his party. The flower of his force was composed
of the troops brought with him from Italy, out of
which with the supplementary aid of the Illyrian prisoners
of war and the Romans domiciled in Greece five legions
in all were formed. Three others came from the
east—the two Syrian legions formed from
the remains of the army of Crassus, and one made up
out of the two weak legions hitherto stationed in Cilicia.
Nothing stood in the way of the withdrawal of these
corps of occupation: because on the one hand
the Pompeians had an understanding with the Parthians,