Pompey, for instance, swaggering his way around the east, had resented being upstaged by the splendors of Greek architecture, regarding it as an affront to his own prestige and that of Rome. Having looted everything from wine coolers to balsam trees for his triumph, he had rounded off his pilfering by having sketches drawn of the great theater of Mytilene, planning to build a copy of it, “only larger and more magnificent.”
