Already the whole mass of the servile crowded around the future monarch.

Already his weaker opponents were seeking their last resource in a new coalition; Crassus, full of old and recent jealousy towards the younger rival who so thoroughly outstripped him, made approaches to the senate and attempted by unprecedented largesses to attach to himself the multitude of the capital--as if the oligarchy which Crassus himself had helped to break down, and the ever ungrateful multitude, would have been able to afford any protection whatever against the veterans of the Spanish army.

For a moment it seemed as if the armies of Pompeius and Crassus would come to blows before the gates of the capital.
Retirement of Pompeius But the democrats averted this catastrophe by their sagacity and their pliancy.

For their party too, as well as for the senate and Crassus, it was all-important that Pompeius should not seize the dictatorship; but with a truer discernment of their own weakness and of the character of their powerful opponent their leaders tried the method of conciliation.

Pompeius lacked no condition for grasping at the crown except the first of all--proper kingly courage.