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In that frame of mind which such gloomy and depressing prospects are well calculated to suggest, I was returning one night to my quarters at Mucia, when suddenly I beheld Mike galloping towards me with a large packet in his hand, which he held aloft to catch my attention. "Letters from England, sir," said he, "just arrived with the general's despatches."
Pompey was Agamemnon; Caesar had been Aegisthus; and Pompey was so far persuaded that Mucia had been unfaithful to him, that he divorced her before his return. Charges of this kind have the peculiar advantage that even when disproved or shown to be manifestly absurd, they leave a stain behind them.
But that supernatural agency, whose province and charge it is always to mix some ingredient of evil with the greatest and most glorious goods of fortune, had for some time back been busy in his household, preparing him a sad welcome. For Mucia during his absence had dishonored his bed.
She was not the sister of Q. Metellus Nepos and Q. Metellus Celer, as Kaltwasser says, but a kinswoman. Cn. Pompeius and Sextus Pompeius were the sons of Mucia. After her divorce in the year B.C. 62 Mucia married M. Æmilius Scaurus, the brother of the second wife of Pompeius. Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus and M. Marcius Philippus were consuls. The trial was that of Milo De Vi, B.C. 56.
If this was the expectation, it was disappointed. Caesar dropped his triumph, came home, and went through the usual forms, and it at once appeared that his election was certain, and that every powerful influence in the State was combined in his favor. From Pompey he met the warmest reception. The Mucia bubble had burst.
Among the last Sosius was a distinguished example: for though he had often fought against Caesar and now fled and hid himself, but was subsequently discovered, his life was nevertheless preserved. Likewise one Marcus Scaurus, a half-brother of Sextus on the mother's side, had been condemned to death, but was later released for the sake of his mother Mucia.
The Mucia story had perhaps done its work, and the Senate and the great commander were willing to meet each other, at least with outward friendliness. His successes had been brilliant; but they were due rather to his honesty than to his military genius. He had encountered no real resistance, and Cato had sneered at his exploits as victories over women.
The report of his intrigue with Mucia answered its immediate purpose, in producing a temporary coldness on Pompey's part toward Caesar; but Pompey must either have discovered the story to be false or else have condoned it, for soon afterward he married Caesar's daughter.
But the Dæmon who takes care always to mix some portion of ill with the great and glorious good things which come from Fortune, had long been lurking on the watch and preparing to make his return more painful to him. For during the absence of Pompeius his wife Mucia had been incontinent.
When, however, he ascertained his power and the fact that he had been in communication with Antony through the latter's mother and through envoys, he feared that he might get embroiled with both at once; therefore preferring Sextus as more trustworthy or else as stronger than Antony he sent him his mother Mucia and married the sister of his father-in-law, Lucius Scribonius Libo, in the hope that by the aid of his kindness and his kinship he might make him a friend.
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