[1] So spake Cornelia, as we are told, and Pompey answered, saying:
It is true, Cornelia, thou hast known but one fortune to be mine, the better one, and this has perhaps deceived thee too, as well as me, in that it remained with me longer than is customary. But this reverse also we must bear, since we are mortals, and we must still put fortune to the test. For I can have some hope of rising again from this low estate to my former high estate, since I fell from that to this.
[2] His wife, accordingly, sent for her goods and servants from the city; and though the Mitylenaeans gave Pompey a welcome and invited him to enter their city, he would not consent to do so, but bade them also to submit to the conqueror, and to be of good heart, for Caesar was humane and merciful.
[3] He himself, however, turning to Cratippus the philosopher, who had come down from the city to see him, complained and argued briefly with him about Providence, Cratippus yielding somewhat to his reasoning and trying to lead him on to better hopes, that he might not give him pain by arguing against him at such a time.
[4] For when Pompey raised questions about Providence, Cratippus might have answered that the state now required a monarchy because it was so badly administered; and he might have asked Pompey:
How, O Pompey, and by what evidence, can we be persuaded that thou wouldst have made a better use of fortune than Caesar, hadst thou got the mastery? But this matter of the divine ordering of events must be left without further discussion.
1
Pompey. Plutarch. Bernadotte Perrin (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1917.
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