49 B.C. est impression. The sentiment of the majority was so doubtful that the consuls would not allow a vote to be taken, even on the proposal of Marcus Marcellus, to defer the determination till the Italian levy could be under arms to protect the senate. The consul Lentulus said openly that he would act on his own authority whatever the senate might decree, and Pompeius let it be known that he would take up the cause of the senate now or never. Thus overawed, the senate decreed that Caesar should, at no distant day, give up Transalpine Gaul to Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, and Cisalpine Gaul to Marcus Servilius Novianus, and should dismiss his army, failing which he should be esteemed a traitor. The Caesarian tribunes who tried to veto the decree were menaced with death in the senate-house, and had to fly in slave's clothing from the capital. On January 7, 49 B.C., the senate declared the country in danger, called all citizens to arms, and all magistrates, faithful to the constitution, to place themselves at their head. Hesitation was now no longer possible for Caesar. He called together the soldiers of the thirteenth legion, which had now arrived at Ravenna, and set before them the whole circumstances. He spoke not to the dregs of the city, but to young men from the towns and villages of northern Italy who were capable of real enthusiasm for liberty, who had received from Caesar the burgess rights which the government had refused them, and whom Caesar's fall would leave once more at the mercy of the fasces. He set before them the thanks which the nobility were preparing for the general and the army which had conquered Gaul, the overawing of the senate by the extreme minority, and the last violation of the tribunate of the people, wrested five hundred years ago by their fathers from the nobility. And when he summoned them, as the general of the popular party, to follow him in the last inevitable struggle against the despised, perfidious aristocracy, not an officer or soldier held back. At the head of his vanguard Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the narrow brook which separated his province from Italy, and which it was forbidden, by the constitution, to the proconsul of Gaul to pass. B Chapter XXXII THE CIVIL WAR. 49-46 B.C. EFORE describing the course of the struggle between the two aspirants to the crown of Rome, it will be well to examine the resources at the disposal of each. Caesar's authority was wholly unlimited within his own party; in all matters, military and political, the decision lay with him. He had no confederates, only adjutants, who, as a rule, were soldiers trained to obey unconditionally. So, on the outbreak of war, one officer alone, and he the foremost of all, refused him obedience. Titus Labienus had shared with Caesar all his political and military vicissitudes of defeat and victory. In Gaul he had always held an independent command, and had frequently led half the army. As late as the year 50 B.C. Caesar had given to him supreme command in Cisalpine Gaul; but from this very position he entered into a treaty with the other side, and on the outbreak of hostilities went at once to the camp of Pompeius. It was the one great disadvantage on Caesar's side that he had no officers to whom he could intrust a separate command, but this was quite outbalanced by the unity of the supreme leadership-the indispensable condition of success. The army numbered nine legions-at most fifty thousand men, two-thirds of whom had served in all the campaigns against the Celts. The cavalry consisted of mercenaries from Germany and Noricum, and had been well tried in the war against Vercingetorix. The physical condition of the soldiers was beyond all praise; by the careful selection of recruits and by training they had been brought to a perfection never perhaps surpassed in marching power and in readiness for immediate departure at any moment. Their courage and their esprit de corps had been equally developed by Caesar's system of rewards and punishments-a system so perfectly carried out that the preeminence of particular soldiers or divisions was acquiesced in even by their less favored comrades. Their discipline was strict, but not harassing; and while maintained with 49 B.C. unrelenting rigor in the presence of the enemy, was relaxed at other times, especially after victory, when even irregularities and outrages of a very questionable kind went unpunished. Mutiny was never pardoned, in either the ringleaders or their dupes. Caesar took care that victory should be associated in the minds of both. officers and soldiers with hopes of personal gain; everyone had his share of the spoil, and the most lavish gifts were promised at the triumph. At the same time that unquestioning obedience was exacted from all, yet all were allowed some glimpse at the general's aims and springs of action, so that each might feel that he was doing his part towards the attainment of the common object, and no one could complain that he was treated as a mere instrument. During the long years of warfare a sense of comradeship grew up between soldiers and leader. They were his clients, whose services he was bound to requite, and whose wrongs he was bound to revenge. The result was that Caesar's soldiers were, and knew themselves to be, a match for ten times their number, and that their fidelity to him was unchangeable and unparalleled. With one exception no Roman soldier or officer refused to follow him into the civil war, and the legionaries even determined to give credit for the double pay which Caesar promised them from the beginning of the war, while every subaltern officer equipped and paid a trooper out of his own purse. Thus Caesar had two requisites for success-unlimited authority and a magnificent and trustworthy army. But his power extended over a very limited space. It was based essentially on the province of upper Italy, which was indeed devoted to him and furnished an ample supply of recruits. But in Italy the mass of the burgesses were all for his opponents, and expected from Caesar only a renewal of the Marian and Cinnan atrocities. His only friends in Italy were the rabble and the ruined of all classes-friends infinitely more dangerous than foes. The newly conquered territory in Gaul could not, of course, be relied on, and in Narbo the constitutional party had many adherents. Among the independent princes Caesar had tried to effect something by gifts and promises, but without important result except in the case of Voctio, king of Noricum, from whom cavalry recruits were obtained. Caesar thus began the war without other resources than efficient adjutants, a faithful army, and a devoted province. Pompeius, on the other hand, was chief of the Roman commonwealth and 49 B.C. master of all the resources at the disposal of the legitimate government of the empire. But unity of leadership was inconsistent with the nature of a coalition; and though Pompeius was nominated by the senate sole generalissimo by land and sea, he could not prevent the senate itself from exercising the political supremacy, or from occasionally interfering even in military matters. Twenty years of antagonism made it impossible for either party of the coalition to place complete confidence in the other. In resources Caesar's opponents had an overwhelming superiority. They had exclusive command of the sea, and the disposal of all ports, ships, and naval material. The two Spains were specially devoted to Pompeius, and the other provinces had during recent years been put into safe hands. The client states were all for Pompeius; many of them had been brought into close personal relations with him at different times. He had been the companion in arms of the kings of Numidia and of Mauretania; he had reestablished the kingdoms of Bosporus, Armenia, and Cappadocia, and created that of Deiotarus. He had caused the rule of the Lagidae to be reëstablished in Egypt, and even Massilia was indebted to him for an extension of territory. Moreover, the democratic policy handed down from Gaius Gracchus of uniting the dependent states and of setting up provincial colonies was dreaded by the dependent princes, more especially by Juba, king of Numidia, whose kingdom Curio had lately proposed to annex. Even the Parthians by the convention between Pacorus and Bibulus were practically in alliance with the aristocracy. In Italy, not only the aristocracy, but the capitalists, were bitterly opposed to Caesar, together with the men of small means, and the landowners, and generally all classes who had anything to lose. The army of Pompeius consisted chiefly of the seven Spanish. legions-troops in every way trustworthy-and of scattered divisions in Syria, Asia, Macedonia, Africa, and Sicily. In Italy there were the two legions lately given over by Caesar-not more than seven thousand men, and, of course, of doubtful trustworthiness. There were also three legions remaining from the levies of 54 B.C., and the Italian levy, which had been sworn to allegiance and then dismissed on furlough. Altogether the Italian troops which might, within a very short time, be made available amounted to about sixty thousand men. Cavalry there was none, but a 49 B.C. nucleus of three hundred men was soon formed by Pompeius, out of the mounted herdsmen of Apulia. B.C. Under such circumstances the war began, early in January, 49 Caesar had only one legion-five thousand men and three hundred cavalry-at Ravenna, distant by road about 240 miles from Rome. Pompeius had two weak legions-seven thousand infantry and a small force of cavalry-at Luceria, about equally distant from Rome. The remainder of Caesar's troops were either on the Saone and Loire or in Belgica, while Pompeius's reserves were already arriving at their rendezvous. Nevertheless Caesar resolved to assume the offensive: in the spring Pompeius would be able to act with the Spanish troops in Transalpine and with his Italian troops in Cisalpine Gaul; but at the moment he might be disconcerted by the suddenness of the attack. Accordingly Marcus Antonius pushed forward across the Apennines to Arretium, while Caesar advanced along the coast. The recruiting officers of Pompeius and their recruits fled at the news of his approach; several small successes were gained, and Caesar resolved to advance upon Rome itself, rather than upon the army of Luceria. A panic seized the city when the news arrived; Pompeius decided not to defend it, and the senators and consuls hurried to leave, not even delaying to secure the state treasure. At Teanum Sidicinum new proposals from Caesar were considered, in which he again offered to dismiss his army and hand over his provinces if Pompeius would depart to Spain and if Italy were disarmed. The reply was that if Caesar would at once return to his province the senate would bind itself to procure the fulfillment of his demands. As to the war, Pompeius was ordered to advance with the legions from Luceria into Picenum, and personally to call together the levy of that district, and try to stop the invader. But Caesar was already in Picenum. Auximum, Camerinum, and Asculum fell into his hands; and such of the recruits as were not dispersed left the district and repaired to Corfinium, where the Marsian and Paelignian levies were to assemble. Here Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus was in command; and instead of conducting the recruits, who now amounted to fifteen thousand men, to Luceria according to the instructions of Pompeius, he remained where he was, expecting Pompeius to come to his relief. Instead of Pompeius Caesar arrived, now at the head of forty thousand men. Domitius had not the courage to hold the place; neither did he resolve to |