In the following year (B.C. 51) Pompey declared himself still more openly on the side of the Senate; but still he shrank from supporting all the violent measures of the Consul M. Claudius Marcellus, who proposed to send a successor to Cæsar, on the plea that the war in Gaul was finished, and to deprive him of the privilege of becoming a candidate for the Consulship in his absence. The Consuls for the next year (B.C. 50), L. Æmilius Paullus and C. Claudius Marcellus, and the powerful Tribune C. Curio, were all reckoned devoted partisans of Pompey and the Senate. Cæsar, however, gained over Paullus and Curio by large bribes, and with a lavish hand distributed immense sums of money among the leading men of Rome. It was proposed in the Senate by the Consul C. Marcellus that Cæsar should lay down his command by the 13th of November. But this was an unreasonable demand; Cæsar's government had upward of another year to run; and if he had come to Rome as a private man to sue for the Consulship, there can be no doubt that his life would have been sacrificed. Cato had declared that he would bring Cæsar to trial as soon as he laid down his command; but the trial would have been only a mockery, for Pompey was in the neighborhood of the city at the head of an army, and would have overawed the judges by his soldiery as at Milo's trial. The Tribune Curio consequently interposed his veto upon the proposition of Marcellus. The Senate, anxious to diminish the number of his troops, had, under pretext of a war with the Parthians, ordered that Pompey and Cæsar should each furnish a legion to be sent into the East. The legion which Pompey intended to devote to this service was one he had lent to Cæsar in B.C. 53, and which he now accordingly demanded back; and, although Cæsar saw that he should thus be deprived of two legions, which would probably be employed against himself, he complied with the request. Upon their arrival in Italy, they were not sent to the East, but were ordered to pass the winter at Capua. Cæsar took up his quarters at Ravenna, the last town in his province bordering upon Italy.
Though war seemed inevitable, Cæsar still showed himself willing to enter into negotiations with the aristocracy, and accordingly sent Curio with a letter addressed to the Senate, in which he expressed his readiness to resign his command if Pompey would do the same. Curio arrived at Rome on the 1st of January, B.C. 49, the day on which the new Consuls, L. Cornelius Lentulus and C. Claudius Marcellus, entered upon their office. It was with great difficulty that the Tribunes, M. Antonius, afterward the well-known Triumvir, and Q. Cassius Longinus, forced the Senate to allow the letter to be read. After a violent debate, the motion of Scipio, Pompey's father-in-law, was carried, "that Cæsar should disband his army by a certain day, and that if he did not do so he should be regarded as an enemy of the state." On the 6th of January the Senate passed the decree investing the Consuls with dictatorial power. Antonius and Cassius, considering their lives no longer safe, fled from the city in disguise to Cæsar's army, and called upon him to protect the inviolable persons of the Tribunes. This was the crisis. The Senate intrusted the management of the war to Pompey, determined that fresh levies of troops should be held, and voted a sum of money from the public treasury to Pompey. Pompey all along had no apprehensions as to the war; he thought it impossible that Cæsar should ever march against him; he was convinced that his great fame would cause a multitude of troops to flock around him whenever he wished. In addition to this, he had been deceived as to the disposition of Cæsar's troops: he had been led to believe that they were ready to desert their general at the first opportunity. Consequently, when the war broke out, Pompey had scarcely any troops except the two legions which he had obtained from Cæsar, and on the fidelity of which he could by no means rely.
CHAPTER XXXV.
FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND CIVIL WAR TO CÆSAR'S DEATH. B.C. 49-44.
As soon as Cæsar learned at Ravenna the last resolution of the Senate, he assembled his soldiers, informed them of the wrongs he had sustained, and called upon them to support him. Finding them quite willing to support him, he crossed the Rubicon,[69] which separated his province from Italy, and occupied Ariminum, where he met with the Tribunes. He commenced his enterprise with only one legion, consisting of 5000 foot-soldiers and 300 horse; but others had orders to follow him from Transalpine Gaul, and he was well aware of the importance of expedition, that the enemy might have no time to complete their preparations. Though it was the middle of winter, he pushed on with the utmost rapidity, and such was the popularity of his cause in Italy, that city after city opened its gates to him, and his march was like a triumphal progress. Arretium, Pisaurum, Fanum, Ancona, Iguvium, and Auximum fell into his hands. These successes caused the utmost consternation at Rome; it was reported that Cæsar's cavalry were already at the gates; a general panic seized the Senate, and they fled from the city without even taking with them the money from the public treasury. Cæsar continued his victorious march through Picenum till he came to Corfinium, which M. Domitius Ahenobarbus held with a strong force; but, as Pompey did not march to his assistance, Domitius was unable to maintain the place, and fell himself into Cæsar's hands, together with several other Senators and distinguished men. Cæsar, with the same clemency which he displayed throughout the whole of the Civil War, dismissed them all uninjured. He then hastened southward in pursuit of Pompey, who had now resolved to abandon Italy. He reached Brundusium before Cæsar, but had not sailed when the latter arrived before the town. Cæsar straightway laid siege to the place, but Pompey abandoned it on the 17th of March, and embarked for Greece. Cæsar was unable to follow him for want of ships. He accordingly marched back from Brundusium, and repaired to Rome, having thus in three months become the master of the whole of Italy.
The only opposition which Cæsar met with in Rome was from L. Metellus the Tribune, who attempted to prevent him from entering the public treasury, though the people had given him permission to take from it as much money as he pleased. "Stand aside, young man," said Cæsar; "it is easier for me to do than to say." After remaining in the neighborhood of Rome for a short time, he set out for Spain, leaving M. Lepidus in charge of the city, and M. Antonius in command of the troops in Italy. He sent Curio to drive Cato out of Sicily, Q. Valerius to take possession of Sardinia, and C. Antonius to occupy Illyricum. Curio and Valerius obtained possession of Sicily and Sardinia without opposition; and the former then passed over into Africa, which was in possession of the Pompeian party. Here, however, he encountered strong opposition, and at length was defeated, and lost his life in a battle with Juba, king of Mauretania, who supported P. Atius Varus, the Pompeian commander. C. Antonius also met with ill success in Illyricum, for his army was defeated, and he himself taken prisoner. These disasters were more than counterbalanced by Cæsar's victories in the mean time in Spain. Leaving Rome about the middle of April, he found, on his arrival in Gaul, that Massilia refused to submit to him. He besieged the place forthwith, but, unable to take it immediately, he left C. Trebonius and D. Brutus, with part of his troops, to prosecute the siege, and continued his march to Spain. On the approach of Cæsar, L. Afranius and M. Petreius, the lieutenants of Pompey in Spain, united their forces, and took up a strong position near the town of Ilerda (Lerida, in Catalonia), on the right bank of the Sicoris (Segre). After experiencing great difficulties at first and some reverses, Cæsar at length reduced Afranius and Petreius to such straits that they were obliged to surrender. They themselves were dismissed uninjured, part of their troops disbanded, and the remainder incorporated among Cæsar's troops. The conqueror then proceeded to march against Varro, who commanded two legions in the Farther Province; but, after the victory over Afranius and Petreius, there was no army in Spain capable of offering resistance, and Varro accordingly surrendered to Cæsar on his arrival at Corduba (Cordova). Having thus subdued all Spain in forty days, he returned to Gaul. Massilia had not yet yielded; but the siege had been prosecuted with so much vigor, that the inhabitants were compelled to surrender the town soon after he appeared before the walls.
During his absence in Spain Cæsar was appointed Dictator by the Prætor M. Lepidus, who had been empowered to do so by a law passed for the purpose. On his return to Rome Cæsar assumed the new dignity, but laid it down again at the end of eleven days, after holding the Consular Comitia, in which he himself and P. Servilius Vatia were elected Consuls for the next year. But during these eleven days he caused some very important laws to be passed. The first was intended to relieve debtors, but at the same time to protect, to a great extent, the rights of creditors. He next restored all exiles; and, finally, he conferred the full citizenship upon the Transpadani, who had hitherto held only the Latin franchise.