Page:The Children's Plutarch, Romans.djvu/135

 Pompey showed a merciful spirit, and placed them as colonists in various cities in Asia Minor and Greece. This was in 67

Great were the wars of Pompey in Asia. He and his valiant Romans carried the eagles of the republic over rocky hills, over rivers, marshes, deserts, through forests, among wild tribes, among the Armenians, the Syrians, the Jews, the Arabs. They took a thousand castles and nine hundred cities.

Perhaps he would think to himself sometimes: “Some day I may he master of all the Roman world, from Spain in the west to the palm-trees of Arabia in the east.”

Two other men, Crassus the Rich and Julius Cæsar, were also men of power. There was a senate of noblemen who still sat and talked in the forum at Rome, but they could not manage to govern so large a domain of land and sea, and many of them only thought how to make themselves and their families wealthy. The three generals, Cæsar, Crassus, and Pompey, divided the lordship among them—Cæsar commanded the army in Gaul; Pompey had Spain and Africa; Crassus went to the east, where he was slain, as I have already told you.

Pompey gave the people of Rome a grand theatre, and provided splendid shows. Five hundred lions were let out of cages, and fought in