The apophthegms or remarkable sayings of kings and great commanders. (89-90)

CN. POMPEIUS. Cn. Pompeius was as much beloved by the Romans as his father was hated. When he was young, he wholly sided with Sylla, and before he had borne many offices or was chosen into the senate, he enlisted many soldiers in Italy. When Sylla sent for him, he returned answer, that he would not muster his forces in the presence of his general, unfleshed and without spoils; nor did he come before that in several fights he had overcome the captains of the enemy. He was sent by Sylla lieutenant-general

into Sicily, and being told that the soldiers turned out of the way and forced and plundered the country, he sealed the swords of such as he sent abroad, and punished all other stragglers and wanderers. He had resolved to put the Mamertines, that were of the other side, all to the sword; but Sthenius the orator told him, He would do injustice if he should punish many that were innocent for the sake of one that was guilty; and that he himself was the person that persuaded his friends and forced his enemies to side with Marius. Pompey admired the man, and said, he could not blame the Mamertines for being inveigled by a person who preferred his country beyond his own life; and forgave both the city and Sthenius too. When he passed into Africa against Domitius and overcame him in a great battle, the soldiers saluted him Imperator. He answered, he could not receive that honor, so long as the fortification of the enemy’s camp stood undemolished; upon this, although it rained hard, they rushed on and plundered the camp. At his return, among other courtesies and honors wherewith Sylla entertained him, he styled him The Great; yet when he was desirous to triumph, Sylla would not consent, because he was not yet chosen into the senate. But when Pompey said to those that were about him, Sylla doth not know that more worship the rising than the setting sun, Sylla cried aloud, Let him triumph. Hereat Servilius, one of the nobles, was displeased; the soldiers also withstood his triumph, until he had bestowed a largess among them. But when Pompey replied, I would rather forego my triumph than flatter them,—Now, said Servilius, I see Pompey is truly great and worthy of a triumph. It was a custom in Rome, that knights who had served in the wars the time appointed by the laws should bring their horse into the forum before the censors, and there give an account of their warfare and the commanders under whom they had served. Pompey, then consul, brought also his horse before the censors, Gellius and Lentulus; and when they asked him, as the manner is, whether he had served all his campaigns, All, said he, and under myself as general. Having gotten into his hands the writings of Sertorius in Spain, among which were letters from several leading men in Rome, inviting Sertorius to Rome to innovate and change the government, he burnt them all, by that means giving opportunity to ill-affected persons to repent and mend their manners. Phraates, king of Parthia, sent to him requesting that the river Euphrates might be his bounds. He answered, the Romans had rather the right should be their bounds towards Parthia. L. Lucullus, after he left the army, gave himself up to pleasure and luxury, jeering at Pompey for busying himself in affairs unsuitable to his age. He answered, that government became old age better than luxury. In a fit of sickness, his physician prescribed him to eat a thrush; but when none could be gotten, because they were out of season, one said, that Lucullus had some, for he kept them all the year. It seems then, said he, Pompey must not live, unless Lucullus play the glutton; and dismissing the physician, he ate such things as were easy to be gotten. In a great dearth at Rome, he was chosen by title overseer of the market, but in reality lord of sea and land, and sailed to Africa, Sardinia, and Sicily. Having procured great quantities of wheat, he hastened back to Rome; and when by reason of a great tempest the pilots were loath to hoist sail, he went first aboard himself, and commanding the anchor to be weighed, cried out aloud, There is a necessity of sailing, but there is no necessity of living. When the difference betwixt him and Caesar broke out, and Marcellinus, one of those whom he had preferred, revolted to Caesar and inveighed much against Pompey in the senate; Art thou not ashamed, said he, Marcellinus, to reproach me, who taught you to speak when you were dumb, and fed you full even to vomiting when you were starved? To Cato, who severely blamed him because, when he had often informed him of the growing power of Caesar, such as was dangerous to a democracy, he took little notice of it, he answered, Your counsels were more presaging, but mine more friendly. Concerning himself he freely professed, that he entered all his offices sooner than he expected, and resigned them sooner than was expected by others. After the fight at Pharsalia, in his flight towards Egypt, as he was going out of the ship into the fisher-boat the king sent to attend him, turning to his wife and son, he said nothing to them beside those two verses of Sophocles:

Whoever comes within a tyrant’s door

Becomes his slave, though he were free before.

As he came out of the boat, when he was struck with a sword, he said nothing; but gave one groan, and covering his head submitted to the murderers.

CICERO. Cicero the orator, when his name was played upon and his friends advised him to change it, answered, that he would make the name of Cicero more honorable than the name of the Catos, the Catuli, or the Scauri. He dedicated to the Gods a silver cup with a cover, with the first letters of his other names, and instead of Cicero a chick-pea (cicer) engraven. Loud bawling orators, he said, were driven by their weakness to noise, as lame men to take horse. Verres had a son that in his youth had not well secured his chastity; yet he reviled Cicero for his effeminacy, and called him catamite. Do you not know, said he, that children are to be rebuked at home within doors? Metellus Nepos told him he had slain more by his testimony than he had saved by his pleadings. You say true, said he, my honesty exceeds my eloquence. When Metellus asked him who his father was, Your mother, said he, hath made that question a harder one for you to answer

than for me. For she was unchaste, while Metellus himself was a light, inconstant, and passionate man. The same Metellus, when Diodotus his master in rhetoric died, caused a marble crow to be placed on his monument; and Cicero said, he returned his master a very suitable gratuity, who had taught him to fly but not to declaim. Hearing that Vatinius, his enemy and otherwise a lewd person, was dead, and the next day that he was alive, A mischief on him, said he, for lying. To one that seemed to be an African, who said he could not hear him when he pleaded, And yet, said he, your ears are of full bore. He had summoned Popilius Cotta, an ignorant blockhead that pretended to the law, as a witness in a cause; and when he told the court he knew nothing of the business, On my conscience, I’ll warrant you, said Cicero, he thinks you ask him a question in the law. Verres sent a golden sphinx as a present to Hortensius the orator, who told Cicero, when he spoke obscurely, that he was not skilled in riddles. That’s strange, said he, since you have a sphinx in your house. Meeting Voconius with his three daughters that were hard favored, he told his friends softly that verse,—

Children he hath got,

Though Apollo favored not.

When Faustus the son of Sylla, being very much in debt, set up a writing that he would sell his goods by auction, he said, I like this proscription better than his father’s. When Pompey and Caesar fell out, he said, I know whom to fly from, but I know not whom to fly to. He blamed Pompey for leaving the city, and for imitating Themistocles rather than Pericles, when his affairs did not resemble the former’s but the latter’s. He changed his mind and went over to Pompey, who asked him where he left his soninlaw Piso. He answered, With your father-in-law Caesar. To one that went over from Caesar to Pompey, saying that in his haste and eagerness he had left his horse behind him,

he said, You have taken better care of your horse than of yourself. To one that brought news that the friends of Caesar looked sourly, You do as good as call them, said he, Caesar’s enemies. After the battle in Pharsalia, when Pompey was fled, one Nonius said they had seven eagles left still, and advised to try what they would do. Your advice, said he, were good, if we were to fight with jackdaws. Caesar, now conqueror, honorably restored the statues of Pompey that were thrown down; whereupon Cicero said, that Caesar by erecting Pompey’s statues had secured his own. He set so high a value on oratory, and did so lay out himself especially that way, that having a cause to plead before the centumviri, when the day approached and his slave Eros brought him word it was deferred until the day following, he presently made him free.