vented his
_contio_ the day before.]

XIX (A I, 14)

TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS)

ROME, 13 FEBRUARY

[Sidenote: B.C. 61, AET. 45]

I fear it may seem affectation to tell you how occupied I have been; but
I am so distracted with business that I have only just found time for
this short letter, and that has been stolen from the most urgent
engagements. I have already described to you Pompey's first public
speech--it did not please the poor, nor satisfy the disloyal, nor find
favour with the wealthy, nor appear sound to the loyalists; accordingly,
he is down in the world.[85] Presently, on the instigation of the consul
Piso, that most insignificant of tribunes, Fufius, brought Pompey on to
the platform. The meeting was in the _circus Flaminius_, and there was
in the same place that day a crowd of market people--a kind of _tiers
etat_.[86] He asked him to say whether he approved of the jurymen being
selected by the praetor, to form a panel for the praetor himself to
employ. That was the regulation made by the senate in the matter of
Clodius's sacrilege. Thereupon Pompey made a highly "aristocratic"
speech, and replied (and at great length) that in all matters the
authority of the senate was of the greatest weight in his eyes and had
always been so. Later on the consul Messalla in the senate asked Pompey
his opinion as to the sacrilege and the bill that had been published.
His speech in the senate amounted to a general commendation of all
decrees of the house, and when he sat down he said to me, "I think my
answer covers your case also."[87] When Crassus observed that Pompey had
got a cheer from the idea in men's minds that he approved my consulship,
he rose also to his feet and delivered a speech in the most
complimentary terms on my consulship, going so far as to say that he
owed it to me that he was still a senator, a citizen, nay, a free man;
and that he never beheld wife, home, or country without beholding the
fruits of my conduct. In short: that whole topic, which I am wont to
paint in various colours in my speeches (of which you are the
Aristarchus), the fire, the sword--you know my paint-pots--he elaborated
to the highest pitch. I was sitting next to Pompey. I noticed that he
was agitated, either at Crassus earning the gratitude which he had
himself neglected, or to think that my achievements were, after all, of
such magnitude that the senate was so glad to hear them praised,
especially by a man who was the