Pompey (23.4-24.1)

For life in the robes of peace has a dangerous tendency to diminish the reputation of those whom war has made great and ill suited for democratic equality. Such men claim that precedence in the city also which they have in the field, while those who achieve less distinction in the field feel it to be intolerable if in the city at any rate they have no advantage. Therefore when the people find a man active in the forum who has shone in camps and triumphs, they depress and humiliate him, but when he renounces and withdraws from such activity, they leave his military reputation and power untouched by their envy. How true this is, events themselves soon showed.

The power of the pirates had its seat in Cilicia at first, and at the outset it was venturesome and elusive; but it took on confidence and boldness during the Mithridatic war,[*] because it lent itself to the king’s service.