Metellus, who was a kinsman of the
Metellus who had the command in Iberia jointly with Pompeius, was sent
as commander to Crete before Pompeius was chosen. For Crete was a kind
of second source of pirates and next to Cilicia; and Metellus having
caught many of them in the island took them prisoners and put them to
death. Those who still survived and were blockaded, sent a suppliant
message and invited Pompeius to the island, as being a part of his
government and falling entirely within the limits reckoned from the
coast. Pompeius accepted the invitation and wrote to Metellus to
forbid him continuing the war. He also wrote to the cities not to pay
any attention to Metellus, and he sent as commander one of his own
officers, Lucius Octavius, who entering into the forts of the besieged
pirates and fighting on their side made Pompeius not only odious and
intolerable, but ridiculous also, inasmuch as he lent his name to
accursed and godless men and threw around them his reputation as a
kind of amulet, through envy and jealousy of Metellus. Neither did
Achilles,[247] it was argued, act like a man, but like a youth all
full of violence and passionately pursuing glory, when he made a sign
to the rest of the Greeks and would not let them strike Hector,
"For fear another gave the blow and won
The fame, and he should second only come;"
but Pompeius even protected and fought in behalf of the common enemy,
that he might deprive of a triumph a general who had endured so much
toil.
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