She became pregnant a second time and brought
forth a female child, but she died of the pains of labour and the
child did not survive her many days. Pompeius made preparations to
bury her in his Alban villa, but the people by force took the body and
carried it down into the Field of Mars, more from pity for the young
woman than to please Pompeius and Caesar. But of the two, it was
considered that the people gave a larger portion of the honour to
Caesar who was absent than to Pompeius who was present. But in the city
the waves forthwith began to move and everything was tossed to and
fro, and was the subject of conversation tending to a complete split,
now that the marriage connection was ended which hitherto rather
veiled than checked the ambition of the two men. After no long time
news also arrived that Crassus had lost his life among the Parthians;
and that which had been a great hindrance to the civil war breaking
out was now removed, for both Caesar and Pompeius feared Crassus, and
accordingly to some extent confined themselves within limits in their
behaviour towards one another. But when fortune had cut off the man
who was keeping a watch over the struggle, forthwith the words of the
comic poet became applicable:
"Now each against the other smears his limbs,
And strews his hands with dust."
So small a thing is fortune in comparison with men's nature. For
fortune cannot satisfy men's desires, since so great an amount of
command and extent of wide-stretched territory put no check on the
desires of two men, but though they heard and read that "all
things[328] were divided into three portions for the gods and each got
his share of dominion," they thought the Roman empire was not enough
for them who were only two.
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