Pompey was the elder of the two
by six years. He was already a great man, covered with distinctions, and
perhaps he supposed that he was finding in Caesar a useful subordinate.
Caesar naturally liked Pompey, as a really distinguished soldier and an
upright disinterested man. They became connected by marriage. Cornelia
dying, Caesar took for his second wife Pompey's cousin, Pompeia; and, no
doubt at Pompey's instance, he was sent into Spain to complete Pompey's
work and settle the finances of that distracted country. His reputation as
belonging to the party of Marius and Sertorius secured him the confidence
of Sertorius's friends. He accomplished his mission completely and easily.
On his way back he passed through northern Italy, and took occasion to say
there that he considered the time to have come for the franchise, which
now stopped at the Po, to be extended to the foot of the Alps.
The consulship of Pompey and Crassus had brought many changes with it, all
tending in the same direction. The tribunes were restored to their old
functions, the censorship was re-established, and the Senate was at once
weeded of many of its disreputable members. Cicero, conservative as he
was, had looked upon these measures if not approvingly yet without active
opposition. To another change he had himself contributed by his speeches
on the Verres prosecution.
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