Plutarch's Lives Volume III. eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 810 pages of information about Plutarch's Lives Volume III..

Plutarch's Lives Volume III. eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 810 pages of information about Plutarch's Lives Volume III..

XIII.  On his return to Utica he received letters from Sulla, with orders to disband the rest of the army, and to wait there with one legion for his successor in the command.  Pompeius was annoyed at this and took it ill, though he did not show it; but the army openly expressed their dissatisfaction, and when Pompeius requested them to advance, they abused Sulla, and they said they would not let Pompeius be exposed to danger without them, and they advised him not to trust the tyrant.  At first Pompeius endeavoured to mollify and quiet them, but finding that he could not prevail, he descended from the tribunal and went to his tent weeping.  But the soldiers laid hold of him and again placed him on the tribunal, and a great part of the day was spent in the soldiers urging him to stay and be their leader, and in Pompeius entreating the soldiers to be obedient and not to mutiny, till at last, as they still urged him and drowned his voice with their cries, he swore he would kill himself, if they forced him; and so at last with great difficulty they were induced to stop.  Sulla at first received intelligence that Pompeius had revolted, on which he said to his friends, it was his fate now that he was old to fight with boys, alluding to the fact that Marius, who was very young, gave him most trouble, and brought him into the extremest danger; but on hearing the true state of affairs, and perceiving that everybody with right good will was eager to receive Pompeius and to escort him, he made haste to outdo them.  Accordingly he advanced and met Pompeius, and receiving him with all possible expressions of good-will, he saluted him with a loud voice by the name of Magnus,[213] and he bade those who were present to address him in the same way.  The word Magnus means Great.  Others say that it was in Libya first that the whole army with acclamation pronounced the name, and that it obtained strength and currency by being confirmed by Sulla.  But Pompeius himself, after everybody else, and some time later when he was sent into Iberia as proconsul against Sertorius, began to call himself in his letters and edicts Magnus Pompeius; for the name was no longer invidious when people had been made familiar with it.  And here one may justly admire and respect the old Romans, who requited with such appellations and titles not success in war and battles only, but honoured therewith political services and merits also.  Two men accordingly the people proclaimed Maximi, which means the Greatest; Valerius,[214] because he reconciled the senate to the people when there was a misunderstanding between them; and Fabius Rullus,[215] because he ejected from the senate certain rich persons the children of freedmen who had been enrolled in the list of senators.

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Plutarch's Lives Volume III. from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.