II

That night the most old-fashioned and sober Roman went to bed at an advanced hour.  Men were gathered in little knots along the streets, in the forums, in the porticos and basilicas, arguing, gesticulating, wrangling.  Military tribunes and centurions in armour of Pompeius’s legions were parading on the comitium.[142] Veterans of that leader were jostling about in the crowd, clanking their newly furbished armour and shouting for their old general.  If a man spoke for Caesar, a crowd of bystanders was ready to hoot him down.  Staid householders locked up their dwellings and stationed trusty slaves at the doors to see that the crowds did not take to riot and pillage.  The sailors from the wharves had been drinking heavily in all the taverns, and now roved up and down the crowded streets, seeking opportunity for brawls.  Thieves and cutpurses were plying their most successful work; but no officials had time to direct the efforts of the harassed and slender police corps.  To Pompeius’s palace, without the gates, every man whose voice or vote seemed worth the winning had been summoned.  All the senators had streamed out thither; and there the Magnus had brought them under the spell of his martial authority and made them as wax in his hand.  And all “that majesty that doth hedge about a king,” or about a victorious general, exerted its full influence.  The senators came into the palace of Pompeius as into the palace of their despot.  He stood before them in his largest hall, wearing the embroidered robe of a triumphator, with the laurel crown of his victories upon his head.  At his right hand, as first vizir of his state, stood Lentulus Crus; at his left Lucius Domitius.  The senators came to him and bowed low, and said their “Aves” and “Salves” as though cringing before a Mithridates or Tigranes of the East; and Pompeius, by the cordiality or coolness of his response, indicated which of his vassals had or had not fallen under his disfavour.

  [142] Assembly-place in the Forum Romanum.

Yes, despotism had come at last for Rome.  The oligarchy had by its corrupt incapacity made a tyranny inevitable.  They could make choice of masters, but a master they must have.  Many were the proud Fabii, Claudii, and Valerii present that night—­men whose lines of curule ancestors were as long as the duration of the Republic—­who ground their teeth with shame and inward rage the very moment they cried, “Salve, Magne!” Yet the recipient of all this adulation was in no enviable frame of mind.  He looked harassed and weary, despite the splendour of his dress and crown.  And many were the whispered conversations that passed between him and his ministers, or rather custodians, Lentulus and Domitius.

“Ah! poor Julia,” sighed Pompeius, whose mind ever reverted to his dead wife, “what misery would have been yours if you had seen this day.  Poor Julia; how I loved her; and Caesar, her father, loved her too; and now—­”