When questioned about Clodius, Pompey had answered with the grand air of aristocrat.

Crassus on this occasion, between whom and Cicero there was never much friendship, took occasion to belaud the late great Consul on account of his Catiline successes.

Pompey, we are told, did not bear this well.[227] Crassus had probably intended to produce some such effect.
Then Cicero had spoken in answer to the remarks of Crassus, very glibly, no doubt, and had done his best to "show off" before Pompey, his new listener.[228] More than six years had passed since Pompey could have heard him, and then Cicero's voice had not become potential in the Senate.

Cicero had praised Pompey with all the eloquence in his power.
"Anteponatur omnibus Pompeius," he had said, in the last Catiline oration to the Senate; and Pompey, though he had not heard the words spoken, knew very well what had been said.

Such oratory was never lost upon those whom it most concerned the orator to make acquainted with it.
But in return for all this praise, for that Manilian oration which had helped to send him to the East, for continual loyalty, Pompey had replied to Cicero with coldness.