All these changes had been proposed or accepted by Pompey rather to please the multitude than to obey distinct convictions. And by them he lost his true supporters in the upper classes, without gaining, in the opposite party, the foremost place, already occupied by Cæsar. But Pompey, blind to real worth, imagined then that no one could surpass him in influence; always favoured by circumstances, he had been accustomed to see both the arrogance of Sylla and the majesty of the laws yield before him. Notwithstanding a first refusal by the Dictator, at twenty-six years of age he had obtained the honours of the triumph, without having fulfilled any of the legal conditions. Contrary to the laws, a second triumph had been accorded him, as also the consulship, though out of Rome, and without having followed the necessary order of hierarchy of the magistracies. Full of presumption through the examples of the past, full of confidence in the future through the adulation of the present, he thought he might wound the interests of the nobles without alienating them, and flatter the tastes and passions of the people without losing his dignity. Towards the end of his consulship, he, the chief magistrate of the Republic, he, who thought himself above all others, presented himself as a mere soldier at the annual review of the knights. The momentary effect was immense when the censors, seated on their tribunal, saw Pompey traversing the crowd, preceded by all the pomp of the consular power, and leading before them his horse, which he held by the bridle. The crowd, silent till then, burst out into transports of joy, overcome with admiration at the sight of so great a man glorifying himself for being a simple knight, and modestly submitting himself to the legal forms. But on the demand of the censors if he had made all the campaigns required by law, he answered, “Yes, I have made them all, never having had any other general than myself.”[859] The ostentation of this reply shows that this step of Pompey’s was a false modesty, the most insupportable form of pride, according to the expression of Marcus Aurelius. [Sidenote: Cæsar Questor (686).]