Hercules (the Straits of Gibraltar), and the coast for fifty miles inland, and who should be furnished with two hundred ships, as many soldiers and sailors as he wanted, and more than a million pounds in money.  The nobles were furious in their opposition, and prepared to prevent by force the passing of this law.  The proposer narrowly escaped with his life, and Pompey himself was threatened.  “If you will be another Romulus, like Romulus you shall die” (one form of the legend of Rome’s first king represented him as having been torn to pieces by the senators.) But all resistance was unavailing.  The new command was created, and of course bestowed upon Pompey.  The price of corn, which had risen to a famine height in Rome, fell immediately the appointment was made.  The result, indeed, amply justified the choice.  The new general made short work of the task that had been set him.  Not satisfied with the force put under his command, he collected five hundred ships and one hundred and twenty thousand men.  With these he swept the pirates from the seas and stormed their strongholds, and all in less than three months.  Twenty thousand prisoners fell into his hands.  With unusual humanity he spared their lives, and thinking that man was the creature of circumstances, determined to change their manner of life.  They were to be removed from the sea, should cease to be sailors, and become farmers.  It is possible that the old man of Corycus, whose skill in gardening Virgil celebrates in one of his Georgics, was one of the pirates whom the judicious mercy of Pompey changed into a useful citizen.

A still greater success remained to be won.  For more than twenty years war, occasionally intercepted by periods of doubtful peace, had been carried on between Rome and Mithridates, king of Pontus.  This prince, though reduced more than once to the greatest extremities, had contrived with extraordinary skill and courage to retrieve his fortunes, and now in 67 B.C. was in possession of the greater part of his original dominion.  Lucullus, a general of the greatest ability, was in command of the forces of Rome, but he had lost the confidence of his troops, and affairs were at a standstill.  Pompey’s friends proposed that the supreme command should be transferred to him, and the law, which Cicero supported in what is perhaps the most perfect of his political speeches[6], was passed.  Pompey at once proceeded to the East.  For four years Mithridates held out, but with little hope of ultimate success or even of escape.  In 64, after vainly attempting to poison himself, such was the power of the antidotes by which he had fortified himself against domestic treachery (for so the story runs), he perished by the sword of one of his mercenaries.  For two years more Pompey was busied in settling the affairs of the East.  At last, in 61, he returned to Rome to enjoy a third triumph, and that the most splendid which the city had ever witnessed.  It lasted for two days, but