CHAPTER VIII.
The Joint Rule of Pompeius and Caesar Pompeius and Caesar in Juxtaposition Among the democratic chiefs, who from the time of the consulate of Caesar were recognized officially, so to speak, as the joint rulers of the commonwealth, as the governing "triumvirs," Pompeius according to public opinion occupied decidedly the first place.
It was he who was called by the Optimates the "private dictator"; it was before him that Cicero prostrated himself in vain; against him were directed the sharpest sarcasms in the wall-placards of Bibulus, and the most envenomed arrows of the talk in the saloons of the opposition.

This was only to be expected.

According to the facts before the public Pompeius was indisputably the first general of his time; Caesar was a dexterous party-leader and party-orator, of undeniable talents, but as notoriously of unwarlike and indeed of effeminate temperament.

Such opinions had been long current; it could not be expected of the rabble of quality that it should trouble itself about the real state of things and abandon once established platitudes because of obscure feats of heroism on the Tagus.

Caesar evidently played in the league the mere part of the adjutant who executed for his chief the work which Flavius, Afranius, and other less capable instruments had attempted and not performed.