It was only by continuing to lavish upon Pompey such flattery as was contained in the reference to Scipio, in which a touch of subtle irony is mixed with the flattery, that he could explain the nature of the praise which had, he thought, been due to himself.

There is something that would have been abject in the nature of these expressions, had it not been Roman in the excess of the adulation.

But there is courage in the letter, too, when he tells his correspondent what he believes to have been the cause of the coldness of which he complains: "Quod verere ne cujus animum offenderes"-- "Because you fear lest you should give offence to some one." But let me tell you, he goes on to say, that my Consulship has been of such a nature that you, Scipio, as you are, must admit me as your friend.
In these words we find a key to the whole of Cicero's connection with the man whom he recognizes as his political leader.

He was always dissatisfied with Pompey; always accusing Pompey in his heart of ingratitude and insincerity; frequently speaking to Atticus with bitter truth of the man's selfishness and incapacity, even of his cruelty and want of patriotism; nicknaming him because of his absurdities; declaring of him that he was minded to be a second Sulla; but still clinging to him as the political friend and leader whom he was bound to follow.

In their earlier years, when he could have known personally but little of Pompey, because Pompey was generally absent from Rome, he had taken it into his head to love the man.