Note 1185 — Chapter V · CONSULSHIP OF CÆSAR AND BIBULUS. (695.)
Reading edition
“At the gladiatorial exhibition, the giver of the show and all his attendants were received with hisses. At the games in honour of Apollo, the tragedian Diphilus made a pointed allusion to our friend Pompey in the lines—
‘’Tis through our woes that thou art great,’
and was called upon to repeat the words a thousand times. Further on, the whole assembly cheered him when he said,
‘A time shall come, when thou thyself shall weep That power of thine so deadly’—
for they are lines that one might have said were written on purpose by an enemy of Pompey. The words
‘If nought, nor law, nor virtue, hold thee back,’
were received with a tempest of acclamation. When Cæsar arrived, he met with a cold reception. Curio, on the other hand, who followed him, was saluted with a thousand cheers, as Pompey used to be in the prosperous times of the Republic. Cæsar was annoyed, and sent off a courier post haste to Pompey, who is, they say, at Capua.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 19.)