good opinion of everybody.
This Pompeius never saw.

[Illustration: A TRIUMPH
from a relief of the Empire]

When he returned from his great campaigns in the East in the year 62
Pompeius landed at Brundisium and dismissed his soldiers to their homes.
The senators heaved a vast sigh of relief. He was not going to be
dangerous. When Pompeius arrived in Rome without his army he found that
nobody much wanted him. People were more interested in the struggles
that had been going on at home--Catiline's conspiracy, Cicero's strong
line in putting the conspirators to death, the question whether Caesar
had been implicated, the friendship between Caesar and Crassus--than in
what Pompeius had been doing in the East. Without his army nobody was
afraid of Pompeius. He found Lucullus, in the Senate and political
circles generally, doing everything he could to thwart him, supported by
Cato the Younger, who thought that imperialism, Eastern conquests, and
new wealth were bad things, likely to ruin Rome. Pompeius celebrated a
stupendous triumph which made him the idol of the mob; but the Senate
would not hear of his being made consul or make grants of lands to his
soldiers. The Conservative party had thwarted Pompeius at every turn; he
was deeply hurt, and in his most sensitive part, his vanity. This hurt
finally drove him into an alliance with Caesar and Crassus, the leaders
of the Popular party, and his own most dangerous rivals. He disliked
Crassus and feared Caesar. At the moment his support was invaluable to
the Popular party; therefore Caesar set himself to overcome Pompeius's
distrust of himself and Crassus's deep detestation of Pompeius. He had
good arguments for each of them; and behind them a charm of manner that
few people could resist.

Three years after Pompeius returned from the East the three strongest
men in Rome were bound together. This first Triumvirate (60), as it was
afterwards called, was a private arrangement. People only learned of its
existence when they saw it at work. Pompeius married Caesar's daughter,
Julia, who, so long as she lived, kept him friendly with her father.
Caesar was made consul and at once confirmed all that Pompeius had done
in the East and made grants of lands to his soldiers. A big programme of
land reform was passed through. The corn distribution was reorganized.
People who criticized the Triumvirate too openly, like Cato, were
banished. Cicero also was exiled, since Clodius had sworn