Of the three men who composed it Pompey had gained a great reputation as a soldier, Cæsar had acquired almost equal distinction by his victory in Gaul, while Crassus, though he had served with credit on more than one occasion, was distinctly inferior in this respect to his colleagues. He felt that such an inferiority would tell greatly against him when the spoils came to be divided. It was to the East that he looked for the opportunity that he desired. There had been trouble in the region beyond the Euphrates for some time, and Rome, accused of having failed to keep her treaty arrangement, was, of course, mixed up in it. In 55 B.C., the year when Cæsar's command in Gaul had been renewed for a second period of five years, Crassus was elected Consul, his colleague being Pompey. The province allotted to him after his year of office was Syria, and he left Rome before the year was out to take up his command. He did not meet with anything like universal approval. The decree which gave him the province of Syria made no mention of Parthia, but everyone knew that Parthia was to be attacked, and there was a strong party that, either from prudence or from a sense of right, was strongly opposed to what was manifestly a war of aggression. One of the Tribunes of the People attempted to stop his departure from Rome, actually bidding his attendant detain him by force. This attempt failing, he took his stand at the gate by which Crassus was to depart, and on a hastily constructed altar performed some mysterious rite by which he devoted, under strange and awful curses, the head of Crassus to destruction. But Crassus persevered; arrived at Brundisium he would not wait for favourable weather, but at once crossed the sea, not without suffering a considerable loss in ships. The rest of his journey he performed by land. When passing through Galatia he was entertained by the prince of that country, Deiotarus, then a very old man. Deiotarus was busy building a city, and Crassus jestingly marvelled that at such an age he should engage in such an undertaking. "And you," replied the old man, "who are on your way to Parthia, are not quite in your youth." Crassus was sixty, and looked, we are told, considerably older.