Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/303

56 B.C.] Cicero found that the support of Pompey was not to be relied on. Pompey was far more scrupulous than Cæsar, when it was a question of committing criminal acts, but he had none of Cæsar's delicacy where personal honour was concerned. He wanted the partisan loyalty, which made Cæsar aver, "that if he had been obliged to use the help of cut-throats and foot-pads in maintaining his cause, even to them he would not fail in awarding a due recompense." Cicero had all along served Pompey faithfully, but Pompey seems to have felt no remorse in using him and then dropping him, whenever it suited his own convenience. After the conference of Luca, Cæsar once more turned his back on the intrigues of the capital, and hurried to meet his foes on the shores of the Atlantic. The details of the arrangement between the Three were kept a profound secret for the moment; but that they had come to an arrangement was soon manifest. Pompey sent to Cicero a request, which was equivalent to an order, that he should suspend all action on the question of the Campanian land until he himself should return to Rome. To Quintus Cicero whom he met immediately afterwards in Sardinia he expressed himself for once with an almost brutal frankness: "'You are the very man I want,' he said, 'nothing could be luckier; unless you take pains to keep your brother Marcus straight, I shall hold you responsible for your pledges on his account.' To make a long story short, he