him. But the instrument cut the workman's hand. The next turn of the wheel of fortune showed him in close alliance with this same party, to defend themselves against a common adversary. Pompeius, however, was well aware that these hollow friends would seize the moment of victory to effect his overthrow. If they worsted Cæsar, it would not be to submit once more to himself. He feared the hostile influence of the consuls and magistrates in a camp of Roman citizens, and felt that, in the event of a struggle with them, his title of Imperator would not weigh against their superior claims to the soldiers' allegiance. For the armies of which he was now the nominal leader were raised within the bounds of Italy; they were not debauched like the legions of Sulla, of Marius, of Cæsar, or those which he had himself led from Asia, by long absence from the city and habits of military licence. In order to strengthen his own exalted position, or even to maintain it after the defeat of the invader, he required a military force of another description. It was necessary that his anticipated victory should be gained, not on the soil of Italy, nor by the hands of Lentulus and Domitius, and that his return to Rome should be a triumph over the senate no less than over Cæsar.

With this

Thus only can we account for Pompeius having made no arrangements for maintaining himself at Rome, or at least in Italy, while there was yet time to have brought to his succour the legions in Spain; for his aban- view he abandons Italy and doning Domitius with his strong detachment in disregards the face of so inferior an enemy; and above all, for Spain. his carrying the war to the east instead of to the west, when compelled to escape from the shores of the Peninsula.' It was in Spain that the great strength of his party lay after it was expelled from the hearths of the republic; there was no region where the sacred names of Rome and the senate could

1 It was at first expected that Pompeius, if driven from Italy, would have retired into Spain. Cic. ad Att. vii. 18.: "Tempori pareamus, cum Pompeio in Hispaniam eamus." This letter was written Feb. 3. Appian, B. C. ii. 38.: καὶ παρασκευῆς εἶχεν ὡς ἁρμήσων ὅπη ποτ ̓ ἂν αἱ χρεῖαι καλῶσιν.

meet with so favourable a response in the breasts of the provincials. Twelve legions of Roman soldiers, backed by the resources of so warlike and opulent a country, might be matched with advantage against any force Cæsar could bring against them; and it was more probable that they would have crossed the Pyrenees to engage their antagonists in southern Gaul, than have awaited an assault within their own limits. In the meantime Scipio would have brought up the resources of the east and all that could be spared from the armies of the Syrian frontier, and the two ponderous masses might have met in Italy, and crushed Cæsar between them.

self above the chiefs of his

claims war

against Rome.

But Pompeius had no intention of sharing his victory on equal terms with the great men of his party, or reinstating in He exalts him their ivory chairs the old chiefs of the aristocracy. There was now no disguise as to his designs, no party, and pro- doubt as to the attempt he would make to obliterate every vestige of ancient liberty. Some, indeed, of the nobles might still expect to impose a check upon him by their presence in his camp, but many even of the most distinguished among them were already corrupted by the hope of plunder. War against Italy, war against Rome, was the open cry of the most daring and profligate. We will starve the city into submission, we will leave not a tile on a house throughout the country, was echoed by Pompeius himself. Such was the ominous language which resounded in the senatorial camp as soon as it was pitched in Epirus, and the opposite shores assumed the character of a foreign and a hostile strand. The consuls listened to it without a murmur, for it was their own chosen champion who avowed it. He left the city, says Cicero, not because he could not defend it, and Italy, not because he was driven out of it; but this was his design from the beginning, to move every land and sea, to call to arms the kings of the barbarians, to lead savage na

1 Cic. ad Att. ix. 7.: "Primum consilium est suffocare urbem et Italiam fame, deinde vastare agros, urere, pecuniis locupletum non abstinere . . . . Promitto tibi, si valebit, tegulam illum in Italia nullam relicturum." Comp. ad Att. xi. 6., ad Div. iv. 14.

tions into Italy, not as captives but as conquerors. He is determined to reign like Sulla, as a king over his subjects; and many there are who applaud this atrocious design.1

1 Cic. ad Att. viii. 11.; comp. viii. 16., ix. 9.: Cnæus noster Sullani regni similitudinem concupivit.

"Mirandum in modum

Eldás σo Aéyw. Nihil

ille unquam minus obscure tulit." ix. 10.: "Sullaturit ejus animus et pro scripturit diu."

CHAPTER XV.

CÆSAR REPAIRS TO ROME AND CONVENES THE SENATE.-HIS MODERATION AND CLEMENCY.-HE PLUNDERS THE TEMPLE OF SATURN. HE PROCEEDS TO ATTACK THE POMPEIAN ARMIES IN SPAIN.-DOMITIUS ENCOURAGES THE MASSILIANS TO SHUT THEIR GATES AGAINST HIM.-HE LEAVES A FORCE TO BESIEGE THEIR CITY, AND CROSSES THE PYRENEES. THE POMPEIAN LIEUTENANTS OCCUPY ILERDA.-MILITARY OPERATIONS BEFORE THAT PLACE.OVERFLOW OF THE SICORIS AND PERIL OF CÆSAR.-BRUTUS GAINS A NAVAL ADVANTAGE OVER THE MASSILIANS.-THE POMPEIANS COMPELLED TO EVACUATE ILERDA.-FURTHER MILITARY OPERATIONS, ENDING IN THE CAPITULATION OF THE POMPEIAN ARMIES. A. U. 705, B. c. 49.

CESA

The consuls' abandonment of Italy gives Cæsar a great moral advantage.

ÆSAR now occupied without an antagonist in sight the centre of his enemies' position. Their line of operations was fairly cut in two, and the assailant might determine at his leisure against which of the wings of their army he should first concentrate his forces. Moreover, he found himself in possession of the hostile camp, well stored with the moral and material resources of war, and thronged with deserters from their flying ranks. Rome threw her gates wide open to receive him, and he fully appreciated the immense advantage in a civil war of being able to issue his mandates from the centre of law and order. He was, however, entirely unprovided with the requisite armaments for transporting his army across the Adriatic; nor, in any case, would he have ventured to encounter the gigantic resources of the East at the head of only three legions. Another grave consideration at the same time pressed upon him, the protection of Rome and Italy

from the scarcity which threatened them, so long as Sardinia, Sicily and Africa were held by Pompeian lieutenants.

He expels the

forces of the

senate from

Sardinia and

Sicily.

Accordingly, while he quartered a portion of his forces on the Apulian coast to prevent the enemy's return' or the exit of his Italian partizans, he sent detachments in all haste to effect the conquest of these important positions. The appearance of a legion off the coast of Sardinia encouraged the natives to rise in arms and expel the garrison placed there by the senate." Curio, who now occupied the place of Labienus in his leader's confidence, and whose zeal and ability might compensate for the want of experience, received orders to wrest Sicily from the Pompeians, and from thence cross over the sea, and contest with them the possession of Africa. The island was held for the senate by M. Cato, who had reluctantly obeyed its command to defend so obscure a dependency, for his services, he deemed, could be better employed in Italy, or wherever the consuls might pitch their camp. Accordingly, he seems to have made little preparation for the ungrateful task of arming the Sicilians to harass his beloved city. The sudden approach of the Cæsarian forces, consisting of four legions,* in a flotilla of unarmed transports, found him unable to cope with the invasion, and the news of the abandonment of Italy by Pompeius so shocked and dismayed him, that he determined to shed no blood in a desultory and provincial skirmish. He was satisfied with demanding of the intruder whether it was by the decree of the senate, or under the orders of the people, that he presumed to encroach upon the province of an independent governor. The Master of Italy has sent me, returned the Cæsarian lieutenant, and Cato

5

1 Cic. ad Att. ix. 15. :“Ille (Cæsar) ut ad me scripsit legiones singulas posuit Brundisii, Siponti, Tarenti. Claudere mihi videtur maritimos exitus: et tamen ipse Græciam spectare potius quam Hispanias."

2 Cæs. B. C. i. 30.

3

Appian (B. C. ii. 40.) supposes Asinius Pollio to have been first in command; but that Curio was the superior appears from the sequel.

4 Cæs. l. c.