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 a simpleton? All Rome else believes that you are in the plot, that you have abetted Clodius to devise this threatened mutiny, that you have come out to your husband's camp to-day, as all Rome predicted days and days ago that you would come, to behold the outburst of the mutineers and gloat with your lover over your husband's discomfiture."

"Pompeia," Mucia said solemnly and with conviction, "you are surely insane. I know of no plot. What is this talk of mutiny? The daughter of Pompeius Strabo should not speak lightly of mutinies. Are your wits diseased? Is this a delusion of your own? Have you imagined mutiny impending? Or is there really anything behind what you say? If you are in your senses, let me hear you talk sensibly."

"I am talking sensibly," Pompeia protested. "From the day the army began to disembark at Brundisium, Clodius has had his agents among the men. They inflamed the soldiers' cupidity with exaggerated accounts of the value of the booty brought home, set them calculating the probable amount each one would receive and then, when they were busy with anticipations of how they would spend their prospective wealth, the rumor was spread about that Pompey would turn the entire spoil into the treasury and the men get nothing but their bare pay. They