Caesar, Julius; Rome -- History -- Republic, 265-30 B.C.
All eyes were now turned to Pompey. The war in Asia was over. Pompey,
it was clear, must now return to receive the thanks of his countrymen;
and as he had triumphed in spite of the aristocracy, and as his
victories could neither be denied nor undone, the best hope of the
Senate was to win him over from the people, and to prevent a union
between him and Caesar. Through all the recent dissensions Caesar had
thrown his weight on Pompey's side. He, with Cicero, had urged Pompey's
appointment to his successive commands. When Cicero went over to the
patricians, Caesar had stood by Pompey's officers against the fury of
the Senate. Caesar had the people behind him, and Pompey the army.
Unless in some way an apple of discord could be thrown between them,
the two favorites would overshadow the State, and the Senate's
authority would be gone. Nothing could be done for the moment
politically. Pompey owed his position to the democracy, and he was too
great as yet to fear Caesar as a rival in the Commonwealth. On the
personal side there was better hope. Caesar was as much admired in the
world of fashion as he was detested in the Curia. He had no taste for
the brutal entertainments and more brutal vices of male patrician
society. He preferred the companionship of cultivated women, and the
noble lords had the fresh provocation of finding their hated antagonist
an object of adoration to their wives and daughters. Here, at any rate,
scandal had the field to itself. Caesar was accused of criminal
intimacy with many ladies of the highest rank, and Pompey was privately
informed that his friend had taken advantage of his absence to seduce
his wife, Mucia. Pompey was Agamemnon; Caesar had been Aegisthus; and
Pompey was so far persuaded that Mucia had been unfaithful to him, that
he divorced her before his return.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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