THE HISTORY OF OLD ROME

V. The Establishment of the Military Monarchy

From: The History of Rome, by Theodor Mommsen
Translated with the sanction of the author by William Purdie Dickson

Chapter III - The Fall of the Oligarchy and the Rule of Pompeius

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Page 10

That popularity, to which men like Pompeius, with pretensions greater than their abilities, usually attach more value than they are willing to confess to themselves, could not but fall in the highest measure to the lot of the young general whose accession gave victory to the almost forlorn cause of the democracy. The reward of victory claimed by him for himself and his soldiers would then follow of itself. In general it seemed, if the oligarchy were overthrown, that amidst the total want of other considerable chiefs of the opposition it would depend solely on Pompeius himself to determine his future position.

And of this much there could hardly be a doubt, that the accession of the general of the army, which had just returned victorious from Spain and still stood compact and unbroken in Italy, to the party of opposition must have as its consequence the fall of the existing order of things. Government and opposition were equally powerless; so soon as the latter no longer fought merely with the weapons of declamation, but had the sword of a victorious general ready to back its demands, the government would be in any case overcome, perhaps even without a struggle.

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