XXXIX. Wherefore, remarking that he would leave behind him for Mithridates an enemy stronger than himself, famine, he set vessels to keep a guard on the merchants who sailed to the Bosporus; and death was the penalty for those who were caught. Taking the great bulk of his army he advanced on his march, and falling in with the bodies still unburied of those who with Triarius[286] had fought unsuccessfully against Mithridates and fallen in battle, he buried all with splendid ceremonial and due honours. It was the neglect of this which is considered to have been the chief cause of the hatred to Lucullus. After subduing by his legate Afranius the Arabs in the neighbourhood of the Amanus,[287] he descended into Syria, which he made a province and a possession of the Roman people on the ground that it had no legitimate kings; and he subdued Judæa[288] and took King Aristobulus prisoner. He built some cities, and he gave others their liberty and punished the tyrants in them. But he spent most time in judicial business, settling the disputes of cities and kings, and in those cases for which he had no leisure, sending his friends; as for instance to the Armenians and Parthians, who referred to him the decision as to the country[289] in dispute between them, he sent three judges and conciliators. For great was the fame of his power, and no less was the fame of his virtue and mildness; by reason of which he was enabled to veil most of the faults of his friends and intimates, for he did not possess the art of checking or punishing evil doers, but he so behaved towards those who had anything to do with him, that they patiently endured both the extortion and oppression of the others.
XL. The person who had most influence with Pompeius was Demetrius, a freedman, a youth not without understanding, but who abused his good fortune. The following story is told of him. Cato the philosopher, who was still a young man, but had a great reputation and already showed a lofty spirit, went up to Antioch,[290] when Pompeius was not there, wishing to examine the city. Now Cato, as was his custom, walked on foot, but his friends who were journeying with him were on horseback. Observing before the gate a crowd of men in white vestments, and along the road, on one side the ephebi, and on the other the boys, in separate bodies, he was out of humour, supposing that this was done out of honour and respect to him who wanted nothing of the kind. However he bade his friends dismount and walk with him. As they came near, the man who was arranging and settling all this ceremony, with a crown on his head and a wand in his hand, met them and asked where they had left Demetrius and when he would arrive. Now the friends of Cato fell a-laughing, but Cato exclaimed, "O wretched city," and passed by without making further answer. However Pompeius himself made Demetrius less an object of odium to others by submitting to his caprices without complaint. For it is said that frequently when Pompeius at entertainments was waiting for and receiving his guests, Demetrius would already have taken his place at the table, reclining with haughty air, and with his vest[291] over his ears hanging down. Before he had returned to Rome, Demetrius had got possession of the most agreeable places in the suburbs, and the finest pleasure-grounds and costly gardens were called Demetrian; and yet up to his third triumph Pompeius was lodged in a moderate and simple manner. But afterwards when he was erecting for the Romans that beautiful and far-famed theatre,[292] he built, what may be compared to the small boat that is towed after a big vessel, close by a house more magnificent than he had before; and yet even this was so far from being such a building as to excite any jealousy that the person who became the owner of it after Pompeius, was surprised when he entered it, and he asked where Pompeius Magnus used to sup. Such is the story about these matters.