n plan, and it was sound. But he allowed himself to be
overruled largely because of the gibes of his followers. He moved from
Dyrrachium, where he had held a very strong position, to the plains of
the Enipeus river. At Pharsalia a great battle took place (48). Pompeius
was defeated. His defeat was largely his own fault. He had 43,000 men to
Caesar's 21,000 and was especially strong in cavalry. By a skilful
stratagem Caesar defeated the cavalry; when Pompeius saw this he
believed the day was lost; left the field and hid himself in despair in
his tent. Deserted by their general his lines broke; the defeat became a
rout. His army was wiped out. Pompeius himself fled to Egypt with a
handful of attendants. There he was murdered by the Egyptians, under the
eyes of his wife and son.

Caesar, it is said, wept when Pompeius's seal-ring was handed to him,
and he knew that his great rival had perished. He set the statue of
Pompeius up again in Rome; and might, thereby, have seemed to rebuke,
almost in the words Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Marullus, the
fickle people of Rome who so soon forgot him who was once their idol.

_A Broken Idol_

_Marullus._ Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?
What tributaries follow him to Rome
To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,
Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft
Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements,
To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat
The livelong day, with patient expectation,
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome:
And when you saw his chariot but appear,
Have you not made a universal shout,
That Tiber trembled underneath her banks,
To hear the replication of your sounds
Made in her concave shores?
And do you now put on your best attire?
And do you now cull out a holiday?
And do you now strew flowers in his way,
That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood?
Be gone!
Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,
Pray to the gods to intermit the plague
That needs must light on this ingratitude.

Shakespeare, _Julius Caesar_, I. i.

XI

Marcus Licinius Crassus

Of all the wealthy men in Rome, whether like Lucullus or Sulla they had
brought their riches back from foreign conquests, or extracted it from
the people of the overseas pr