His hair curled slightly over his forehead, and he had a dark and intelligent eye, full of vivacity and meaning.

There was, besides, in the expression of his face, and in his air and address, a certain indescribable charm, which prepossessed every one strongly in his favor, and gave him, from his earliest years, a great personal ascendency over all who knew him.
[Sidenote: Plans to assassinate him.] Notwithstanding this popularity, however, Pompey did not escape, even in very early life, incurring his share of the dangers which seemed to environ the path of every public man in those distracted times.

It will be recollected that, in the contests between Marius and Sylla, Caesar had joined the Marian faction.

Pompey's father, on the other hand, had connected himself with that of Sylla.

At one time, in the midst of these wars, when Pompey was very young, a conspiracy was formed to assassinate his father by burning him in his tent, and Pompey's comrade, named Terentius, who slept in the same tent with him, had been bribed to kill Pompey himself at the same time, by stabbing him in his bed.