e at his mercy. Pompeius addressed the senators, and, well trained
by his guardians, spoke with brutal frankness to those who had dared
to advise moderation.

"You, Rufus," he said, pointing a menacing finger, before which that
senator cowered in dread, "have been advising the Republic to tolerate
the chief of its enemies. You bid me to disarm or withdraw from Italy,
as though the lives and property of any good men would be safe the
moment Caesar was left unopposed to pour his cohorts of barbarous Gauls
and Germans into the country. You, Calidius, have given the same
untimely advice. Beware lest you repent the hour when you counselled
that I should disarm or quit the neighbourhood of Rome." The two-edged
suggestion contained in this last warning was too marked for the
reproved men not to turn pale with dread, and slink away trembling
behind their associates.

"But," continued Pompeius, "I have praise as well as blame; Marcus
Cato has not deserted the Republic. He has advised, and advised well,
that the proconsul of the Gauls be stripped of his legions." It was
Cato's turn now to bite his lips with mortification, for in times past
he had foretold that through Pompeius great miseries would come to the
state, and in his praetorship had declared that Pompeius ought to go to
his province, and not stay at home to stir up tumults and anarchy from
which he could emerge as monarch. And such praise from the Magnus's
lips, under the present circumstances, was gall and wormwood to his
haughty soul.

"And," continued Pompeius, "I shall not forget to applaud the
energetic counsels of Domitius and Lentulus Crus. Let those who wish
to preserve life and property," he added, with a menacing
significance, "see to it that they do as these gentlemen advise."

And thereupon there was a great shout of applause from all the more
rabid senators, in which the rest thought it safer to join, with
simulated heartiness. But Pompeius did not stop here. He brought
before the senators tribunes from the two legions taken from Caesar,
and these tribunes loudly declaimed--having learned their lesson
well--that their troops were ill-affected toward their former
commander, and would follow Pompeius to the last. And the Magnus
produced veteran officers of his old campaigns, whom hope of reward
and promotion had induced to come and declare for their former
commander. Late, very late, the informal session of the Senate broke
up. The "Fathers of the Republ