Such was the end of Pompey the Great. As for Caesar, he arrived not
long after in Egypt, which he found in great disorder. When they came to
present the head, he turned from it, and the person that brought it,
as a sight of horror. He received the seal, but it was with tears.
The device was a lion holding a sword. The two assassins, Achillas
and Photinus, he put to death; and the king, being defeated in battle,
perished in the river. Theodotus, the rhetorician, escaped the vengeance
of Caesar, by leaving Egypt; but he wandered about a miserable fugitive,
and was hated wherever he went. At last, Marcus Brutus, who killed
Caesar, found the wretch, in his province of Asia, and put him to death,
after having made him suffer the most exquisite tortures. The ashes of
Pompey were carried to Cornelia, who buried them in his lands near Alba.
(Langhorne has well remarked that Pompey has, in all appearance, and
in all consideration of his character, had less justice done him by
historians than any other man of his time. His popular humanity,
his military and political skills, his prudence (which he sometimes
unfortunately gave up), his natural bravery and generosity, his conjugal
virtues, which (though sometimes impeached) were both naturally
and morally great; his cause, which was certainly, in its original
interests, the cause of Rome; all these circumstances entitled him to
a more distinguished and more respectable character than any of his
historians have thought proper to afford him.)
THE ENGINES OF ARCHIMEDES FROM THE LIFE OF MARCELLUS
Marcellus now moved with his whole army to Syracuse, and, camping near
the wall, proceeded to attack the city both by land and by sea. The land
forces were conducted by Appius: Marcellus, with sixty galleys, each
with five rows of oars, furnished with all sorts of arms and missiles,
and a huge bridge of planks laid upon eight ships chained together, upon
which was carried the engine to cast stones and darts, assaulted the
walls, relying on the abundance and magnificence of his preparations,
and on his own previous glory; all which, however, were, it would seem,
but trifles for Archimedes and his machines.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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