These retreated, with all the forces which they could retain, to their strong-holds on the Silician shores, sending their wives and children back to still securer retreats among the fastnesses of the mountains.
[Sidenote: A great battle.] [Sidenote: Disposal of the pirates.] Pompey followed them, hemming them in with the squadrons of armed galleys which he brought up around them, thus cutting off from them all possibility of escape.

Here, at length, a great final battle was fought, and the dominion of the pirates was ended forever.

Pompey destroyed their ships, dismantled their fortifications, restored the harbors and towns which they had seized to their rightful owners, and sent the pirates themselves, with their wives and children, far into the interior of the country, and established them as agriculturists and herdsmen there, in a territory which he set apart for the purpose, where they might live in peace on the fruits of their own industry, without the possibility of again disturbing the commerce of the seas.
[Sidenote: Pompey's conquests in Asia Minor.] [Sidenote: His magnificent triumph.] Instead of returning to Rome after these exploits, Pompey obtained new powers from the government of the city, and pushed his way into Asia Minor, where he remained several years, pursuing a similar career of conquest to that of Caesar in Gaul.

At length he returned to Rome, his entrance into the city being signalized by a most magnificent triumph.
The procession for displaying the trophies, the captives, and the other emblems of victory, and for conveying the vast accumulation of treasures and spoils, was two days in passing into the city; and enough was left after all for another triumph.

Pompey was, in a word, on the very summit of human grandeur and renown.
[Sidenote: The first triumvirate.] [Sidenote: Pompey's wife Julia.] [Sidenote: Pompey and Caesar open enemies.] [Sidenote: Their ambition.] He found, however, an old enemy and rival at Rome.