national mourning. The consuls felt that they had already passed the limits of law, and nothing now remained for them but to carry out their violence with a high hand. The senate was again convened to determine what punishment should be inflicted upon the refractory tribunes; and when it was intimated to them that they would be expelled from the councilhall by force,' they wrapped themselves hastily in pretended disguise and fled, together with Curio, as if for their lives. The act of leaving the city was in itself a declaration that they threw up their outraged and defenceless the city and re- office, for the tribune was forbidden to step outside the walls during his term of service. Arrayed in all the dignity of violated independence, they knew that they should be eagerly received in the proconsul's quarters, and paraded throughout his camp as the cause and justification of war.

They leave

pair to Cæsar's

camp.

1 Cæs. B. C. i. 5.: "De sua salute septimo die (Jan. 7.) cogitare coguntur. Dion, xli. 3. : ὁ Λεντοῦλος ὑπεξελθεῖν σφισι παρήνεσε. Appian, B. C. ii. 33. : ἐκέλευον τοῖς ἀμφὶ τὸν ̓Αντώνιον ἐκστῆναι τοῦ συνεδρίου, μή τι καὶ δημαρχοῦντες öμws Tálоlev åтOTTEроv. Liv. Epit. civ.: "Urbe pulsi." The tribunes quitted Rome on the night of Jan. 6-7 Nov. 18-19 of the corrected calendar.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE CONSULS PREPARE TO WITHSTAND CESAR'S CLAIMS BY FORCE.-CÆSAR CROSSES THE RUBICON.-CONSTERNATION OF HIS ENEMIES.-THEY ABANDON ROME, AND RALLY ROUND POMPEIUS IN CAMPANIA.-CESAR ADVANCES TRIUMPHANTLY.-THE SENATE AFFECTS TO NEGOTIATE.-POMPEIUS FALLS BACK UPON LUCERIA.-DOMITIUS MAKES A STAND AT CORFINIUM: IS BETRAYED AND DELIVERED UP BY HIS SOLDIERS: PARDONED BY CESAR.EFFECT OF CESAR'S CLEMENCY.-POMPEIUS IS BESIEGED BY CAESAR IN BRUNDISIUM.-ESCAPES ACROSS THE SEA WITH HIS TROOPS, THE CONSULS AND THE SENATE.-EXPLANATION OF THE APPARENT PUSILLANIMITY OF HIS CONDUCT.

(JAN.-MARCH a. u. 705, b. c. 49.)

ures of the sen

A. U. 705.

S long as the claims which Cæsar advanced were supported by champions invested with the prerogatives of the tribunitian office, the senate, composed of Success of the men of every party and various shades of opinion, vigorous meashad acted, as we have seen, with extreme vacilla- ate. tion. Though it had permitted itself to be swayed B. C. 49. violently from one extreme decision to another at the bidding of its most resolute and turbulent members, yet it had shown, at least on many occasions, a disposition to treat both the rival leaders with equal justice. But the abrupt departure of the tribunes, compelled, as they proclaimed, by the ascendency of the most violent section of the oligarchical faction, changed at once the position of parties, and decided the place of the wavering and neutral. If any voice was now raised for negotiation or even reflection, it was drowned by the din of applause which hailed the indignant reclamations of Scipio, Lentulus and Cato. From this moment the staunchest of the

1 Cæs. B. C. i. 3, 4.

proconsul's adherents in the senate were reduced to silence. If the sacred office had failed to protect the tribunes, what should divert the violence of the consuls from the head of a private partizan? The law had declared itself against Cæsar in the person of its chief organs, the authorities and great council of the state; and the Marian party, the strength of which certainly did not lie in the eminence of its leaders in the city, had neither the courage nor the power to defy it. At the same time, as might be expected, and as doubtless was calculated, the success of violent measures swept along the more moderate councillors, such as Cicero, in the wake of the triumphant leaders of their common party. Even those who had obstinately maintained a neutral position, such as Cato, those who detested and feared both the rival chiefs equally, found themselves reduced to the necessity of embracing the side on which the state had declared itself. In supporting Pompeius at the head of the republic they were compelled to concede to him all his claims, and that entire independence of law and constitutional practice which Cæsar had so plausibly contrasted with the severe treatment he had himself received.

review their

Accordingly, when the consuls convened the senate for the day succeeding the flight of the tribunes, they invited The consuls re- Pompeius to attend their deliberations, which forces, in the were held outside the walls of the city in the prospect of war. temple of Bellona.1 Lentulus was roused to action by the pressure of his debts, the prospect of military command, and the lavish bribes administered to him by eastern potentates, impatient for the commencement of anarchy. He boasted among his friends that a second Cornelius was destined to resume the pre-eminence of Sulla. Scipio, as the father-in-law of the general, expected at least to share his distinctions. Pompeius himself was impelled to the arbitrement of arms by the consciousness of his own equivocal position as the proconsul of a province at the head of an army

1 Cæs. B. C. i. 6.; Dion, xli. 3.; Appian, B. C. ii. 34.

in Italy.' The nobles were charmed at the echo of their bold defiance, and were determined not to relax the vigour of their policy at the moment when it had gained the ascendent. They listened with satisfaction to the sanguine calculations. their leader made of the forces at his disposal. Ten legions he had under arms; seven of these, indeed, were in Spain, where one had been lately levied, in addition to those which the senate had assigned to the proconsul; one only he had in immediate attendance upon his orders in the neighbourhood of Rome, and two more were stationed at Capua, being the same which the government had lately extorted from Cæsar at his bidding. But his strength lay not so much, he affirmed, in the magnitude of the preparations he had made, as in the expectations on which he might confidently rely. A vast portion of the soil of Italy had been parcelled out among the veterans of Sulla, and every motive of gratitude and interest would still attach both them and their descendants to the party which inherited the dictator's principles and obligations. It was on the temper of his rival's forces, however, that Pompeius chiefly relied for the triumphant issue of a struggle he had determined to provoke. The conquerors of Gaul, it was said, were wearied with war, satiated with plunder, discontented with their restless general, dismayed at the prospect of raising their hands against their beloved country. It is not improbable that notions of this kind were disseminated by members of the great families of whom Cæsar kept so many about his own person throughout his campaigns. Certain of these might be in correspondence with his enemies, and not disinclined to betray him, at least if his affairs should seem desperate. Some doubtless who, up to this time, had been most distinguished in foreign fields, declined to follow his banners in the unnatural contest of civil war. Among his chief lieutenants there was one at least who was on the point of abandoning his camp, and arraying himself in arms on the other side. So strong was the conviction upon this point entertained in the circles of the senatorial party, that 1 Cæs. B. C. i. 4. 2 Cæs. B. C. i. 6.; Plut. Pomp. 57.

few of them believed that Cæsar would really venture to throw away the scabbard. But there was no more fatal mistake throughout their proceedings than their confidence in the existence of general disaffection to their leader among the officers and soldiers of the Gallic legions.

Assignment

of the pro

vinces to the leaders of the senate.

The senate, though far from expecting the actual collision of arms, decreed its war-measures with ostentatious energy. Orders were issued for the immediate levy of fresh troops; but, at the same time, so secure did it feel of its position and resources that it made no provision for bringing over the large division of its forces quartered in Spain. It was presumed, indeed, that Cæsar could not venture to withdraw his army of occupation from the conquered provinces of Gaul, and the Iberian legions might be left to menace the garrisons which, if he invaded Italy, he must leave behind him in the west.' In the assignment of provinces which was made at the same sitting of the senate, no respect was paid to the regulations which had been so recently sanctioned by its own decree. The enactment which required an interval of five years between the discharge of office in the city and the assumption of a provincial government was utterly disregarded. Scipio, the consul of the year 702, received Syria, the most important military command in the East. L. Domitius Ahenobarbus was selected to be Cæsar's successor in the Further Gaul, a province which had heretofore been generally reserved for the most devoted partizans of the oligarchy. The Cisalpine Gaul, one of Cæsar's principal strongholds, was confided to Considius; Sicily, Sardinia and Africa, the three granaries of the city, were entrusted to the vigilance of Cato, Cotta and Tubero. Cilicia, which secured the alliance of the dependent kings of Asia Minor, was placed under the control of P. Sestius. A trifling and inglorious charge, that of the Campanian coast, satisfied the demands of Cicero. He was extremely

1 Cic. ad Div. xvi. 12.: "Putabamus illum metuere, si ad urbem ire cœpisset, ne Gallias amitteret, quas ambas habet inimicissimas præter Transpadanos; ex Hispaniaque sex legiones et magna auxilia habet a tergo."