Again, Goulard, talking of the last struggle, says:
After certain encounters, where Pompey ever had the better, insomuch as Lepidus was suspected to lean on that side, Caesar resolved to commit all to the hazard of a latter battle.
The insinuation in regard to Lepidus might be taken as the foundation for Shakespeare’s statement, which has no sanction in Plutarch, that Caesar
accuses him of letters he had formerly wrote to Pompey.
(A. and C. III. v. 10.)
But it seems a closer echo of a remark of Appian’s about some transactions shortly after Philippi:
Lepidus was accused to favour Pompey’s part.
(V. iii.)
There are, moreover, several touches in Shakespeare’s sketch, that he could no more get from Goulard than from Plutarch, but that are to be found in Appian. Thus there is Pompey’s association with the party of the “good Brutus” and the enthusiasm he expresses for “beauteous freedom” (A. and C. ii. vi. 13 and 17). Compare passages like the following in Appian:
Sextus Pompey, the seconde son of Pompey the Great being lefte of that faction, was sette up of Brutus friends.