to disband the rest of the army, and to wait there with one
legion for his successor in the command. Pompeius was annoyed at this
and took it ill, though he did not show it; but the army openly
expressed their dissatisfaction, and when Pompeius requested them to
advance, they abused Sulla, and they said they would not let Pompeius
be exposed to danger without them, and they advised him not to trust
the tyrant. At first Pompeius endeavoured to mollify and quiet them,
but finding that he could not prevail, he descended from the tribunal
and went to his tent weeping. But the soldiers laid hold of him and
again placed him on the tribunal, and a great part of the day was
spent in the soldiers urging him to stay and be their leader, and in
Pompeius entreating the soldiers to be obedient and not to mutiny,
till at last, as they still urged him and drowned his voice with their
cries, he swore he would kill himself, if they forced him; and so at
last with great difficulty they were induced to stop. Sulla at first
received intelligence that Pompeius had revolted, on which he said to
his friends, it was his fate now that he was old to fight with boys,
alluding to the fact that Marius, who was very young, gave him most
trouble, and brought him into the extremest danger; but on hearing the
true state of affairs, and perceiving that everybody with right good
will was eager to receive Pompeius and to escort him, he made haste to
outdo them. Accordingly he advanced and met Pompeius, and receiving
him with all possible expressions of good-will, he saluted him with a
loud voice by the name of Magnus,[213] and he bade those who were
present to address him in the same way. The word Magnus means Great.
Others say that it was in Libya first that the whole army with
acclamation pronounced the name, and that it obtained strength and
currency by being confirmed by Sulla. But Pompeius himself, after
everybody else, and some time later when he was sent into Iberia as
proconsul against Sertorius, began to call himself in his letters and
edicts Magnus Pompeius; for the name was no longer invidious when
people had been made familiar with it. And here one may justly admire
and respect the old Romans, who requited with such appellations and
titles not success in war and battles only, but honoured therewith
political services and merits also. Two men accordingly the people
proclaimed Maximi, which means the Greatest; Valerius,[214] because he
reconciled