But when the time came, the rest kept
back through fear of the people and were silent, except Catulus, who
after finding much fault with the law and the tribune, yet without
persuading any one, urged the Senate from the Rostra, repeating it
many times, to seek for a mountain,[250] like their ancestors, and a
rock, to which they might fly for refuge and preserve their liberty.
Accordingly the law was ratified, as they say, by all the tribes[251]
and Pompeius in his absence was put in possession of nearly
everything which Sulla got after he had made himself master of the
city by arms and war. On receiving the letters and reading the decrees
in the presence of his friends who were congratulating him, Pompeius
is said to have contracted his eyebrows and to have struck his thigh,
and to have spoken like a man who was already tired and averse to
command, "Oh, the endless toils, how much better it were to have been
one unknown to fame, if there shall never be an end to my military
service and I shall never elude this envy and live quietly in the
country with my wife."[252] On hearing these expressions not even his
intimate friends could endure his hypocritical pretences, as they knew
that he was the more delighted, inasmuch as his difference with
Lucullus gave additional fire to his innate ambition and love of
command.
XXXI. And in truth his acts soon discovered his real temper: for he
issued counter-edicts in all directions by which he required the
presence of the soldiers and summoned to him the subject rulers and
kings.
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