by flowing about the hard, cold metal is said to soften and to liquefy it into its own mass better than the fire.  But as in the case of an athlete[204] who has obtained the first place among men and has gloriously vanquished in every contest, his boyish victories are made of no account and are not registered; so the deeds which Pompeius then accomplished, though of themselves extraordinary, yet as they were buried under the number and magnitude of his subsequent struggles and wars, I have been afraid to disturb them, lest if we should dwell too long on his first exploits, we should miss the acts and events which are the most important and best show the character of the man.

IX.[205] Now when Sulla was master of Italy and was proclaimed Dictator, he rewarded the other officers and generals by making them rich and promoting them to magistracies and by granting them without stint and with readiness what they asked for.  But as he admired Pompeius for his superior merit and thought that he would be a great support to his own interests, he was anxious in some way to attach him by family relations.  Metella, the wife of Sulla, had also the same wish, and they persuaded Pompeius to put away Antistia and to take to wife Aemilia, the step-daughter of Sulla, the child of Metella by Scaurus, who was then living with her husband and was pregnant.  This matter of the marriage was of a tyrannical character, and more suited to the interests of Sulla than conformable to the character of Pompeius, for Aemilia, who was pregnant, was taken from another to be married to him, and Antistia was put away with dishonour and under lamentable circumstances, inasmuch as she had just lost her father also, and that, too, on her husband’s account; for Antistius was murdered in the Senate-house because he was considered to be an adherent of Sulla for the sake of Pompeius; and the mother of Antistia having witnessed all this put an end to her life, so that this misfortune was added to the tragedy of the marriage; and in sooth another besides, for Aemilia herself died immediately afterwards in child-birth in the house of Pompeius.

X. After this, news arrived that Perpenna[206] was securing Sicily for himself, and that the island was supplying to those who remained of the opposite faction a point for concentrating their forces; for Carbo[207] was afloat in those parts with a navy, and Domitius had fallen upon Libya, and many other fugitives of note were crowding there, who had escaped from the proscriptions.  Against these Pompeius was sent with a large force:  and Perpenna immediately evacuated Sicily upon his arrival.  Pompeius relieved the cities which had been harshly treated, and behaved kindly to them all except to the Mamertini in Messene.  For when the Mamertini protested against the tribunal and the Roman administration of justice, on the ground that there was an old Roman enactment which forbade their introduction, “Won’t you stop,” said he, “citing laws to us who have our swords