Ο Θεόδοτος Αν είσαι από τους αληθινά εκλεκτούς, την επικράτησί σου κύταζε πώς αποκτάς. Οσο κι αν δοξασθείς, τα κατορθώματά σου στην Ιταλία και στην Θεσσαλία όσο κι αν διαλαλούν η πολιτείες, όσα ψηφίσματα τιμητικά κι αν σ' έβγαλαν στη Ρώμη οι θαυμασταί σου, μήτε η χαρά σου μήτε ο θρίαμβος θα μείνουν, μήτε ανώτερος -- τι ανώτερος; -- άνθρωπος θα αισθανθείς, όταν, στην Αλεξάνδρεια, ο Θεόδοτος σε φέρει, επάνω σε σινί αιματωμένο, του αθλίου Πομπηίου το κεφάλι. Και μη επαναπαύεσαι που στην ζωή σου περιωρισμένη, τακτοποιημένη, και πεζή, τέτοια θεαματικά και φοβερά δεν έχει. Ισως αυτήν την ώρα εις κανενός γειτόνου σου το νοικοκυρεμένο σπίτι μπαίνει -- αόρατος, άϋλος -- ο Θεόδοτος, φέρνοντας τέτοιο ένα φρικτό κεφάλι.

Theodotus

If you are truly one of the select few, watch how you acquire your power. However much you are glorified, however much the cities in Italy and in Thessaly acclaim your achievements , however many decrees in your honor your admirers may have issued in Rome, neither your joy nor your triumph will last, nor will you feel like a superior — what do you mean superior? — man when in Alexandria, Theodotus brings you, upon a bloodstained tray, the head of the wretched Pompey. And do not rely on the fact that in your life, circumscribed, regulated, and prosaic, there are no such spectacular and terrifying things. Perhaps at this very hour, Theodotus is entering the well-appointed house of one of your neighbors — invisible, bodiless — carrying such a hideous head.

Translated to English by George Barbanis

https://allpoetry.com/Theodotus

Theodotus of Chios was one of the tutors of the young king Ptolemy XIII of Egypt. Ptolemies’ tutors decided to murder Pompey, who, after his defeat by Caesar, had escaped to Egypt. This move of the Ptolemaic government was motivated by the desire to please Caesar, but also to destroy the evidence for the covert Egyptian support for Pompey in the first phases of the Roman civil war. It was Theodotus who presented to Caesar the head and the seal ring of Pompey. According to Plutarch ( Life of Caesar, 48, 2, translated by Bernadotte Perrin):

Arriving at Alexandria just after Pompey's death, he turned away in horror from Theodotus as he presented the head of Pompey, but he accepted Pompey's seal-ring, and shed tears over it. Moreover, all the companions and intimates of Pompey who had been captured by the king as they wandered over the country, he treated with kindness and attached them to himself. And to his friends in Rome he wrote that this was the greatest and sweetest pleasure that he derived from his victory, namely, from time to time to save the lives of fellow citizens who had fought against him.

The sincerity of Caesar’s tears was much debated in the Antiquity. But it is sure that the treacherous move of the Ptolemaic government to murder the defeated and powerless Pompey eventually backfired.

Theodotus survived Caesar’s Alexandrian war, but he was arrested in Asia Minor and put to death by Brutus and Cassius after the murder of the Roman dictator (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodotus_of_Chios).