Note 798 — Chapter VIII · EVENTS OF THE YEAR 703.

In speaking of Pompey’s party, Cicero exclaims: “Men who all, with the exception of a very small number, breathed nothing but pillage, and discourses such as made one tremble, the more as victory might convert them into reality: not a person of rank who was not crippled with debts: there was absolutely nothing beautiful except the cause which they served.” (Cicero, Epist. Familiar., VII. 8.)—“They all agree, and Crassipes with them, that yonder there are nothing but imprecations, but threats of hatred to the rich, of war against the municipia (admire their prudence!), but proscriptions in mass; they are nothing but Syllas; and you must see the tone of Lucceius, and all that train of Greeks, and that Theophanes! Yet this is the hope of the Republic! A Scipio, a Faustus, a Libo, with their troops of creditors at their heels, of what enormities are not such people capable? What excesses against their fellow-citizens will such conquerors refuse?” (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, IX. 11.)