Nor was Cato, nor was Pompey. Nor even was Caesar. Throughout the centuries of the Republic’s history, its great men had sought to win glory, and to bring their enemies down. Nothing had changed over the years save the scale of opportunities on offer and the scope for mutual destruction that they had brought. To the Romans of a later age, mourning the death of their freedom, this was to be tragically clear. “By now,” wrote Petronius of the Republic’s last generation, “the conquering Roman had the whole world in his hand, the sea, the land, the course of the stars. But still he wanted more.”34
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