f one he could never come to any great
power; but if he should make a friend of merely either one of them, he
should by that fact find the other his antagonist and should suffer more
reverses through him than he would win success by the support of the
other. For, on the one hand, it seemed to him that all men work more
strenuously against their enemies than they cooeperate with their
friends, not merely as a corollary of the fact that anger and hate impel
more earnest endeavor than any friendship, but also because, when one
man works for himself, and a second for another, success does not hold a
like amount of pleasure or failure of pain in the two cases. Per contra
he reflected that it was handier to get in people's way and prevent
their reaching any prominence than to be willing to lead them to great
heights. The chief reason for this was that he who keeps another from
attaining magnitude pleases others as well as himself, whereas he who
exalts another renders him burdensome to both those parties.

[-56-] These reasons led Caesar at that time to insinuate himself into
their good graces, and subsequently he reconciled them with each other.
He did not believe that without them he could either attain permanent
power or fail to offend one of them some time, and had equally little
fear of their harmonizing their plans and so becoming stronger than he.
For he understood perfectly that he should master other people
immediately through their friendship, and a little later master them
through the agency of each other. And so it was.[28]

Pompey and Crassus, the moment they entered into his plan, themselves
made peace each with the other as if of their own accord, and took Caesar
into partnership respecting their designs. Pompey, on his side, was not
so strong as he had hoped to be, and seeing that Crassus was in power
and that Caesar's influence was growing feared that he should be utterly
overthrown by them; but he had the additional hope that if he made them
sharers in present advantages, he should win back his old authority
through them. Crassus thought that he should properly surpass them all
by reason of his family as well as his wealth; and since he was far
inferior to Pompey and thought that Caesar would rise to great heights,
he desired to set them in opposition one to the other, in order that
neither of them should have the upper hand. He expected that they would
be evenly matched antagonists and in this event he woul