CHAPTER XVII.

THE SENATORIAL PARTY ASSEMBLE AT THESSALONICA.-REVIEW OF THEIR FORCES AND POSITION.-CÆSAR CROSSES OVER TO EPIRUS.-POMPEIUS THROWS HIMSELF BEFORE DYRRHACHIUM.-MARITIME OPERATIONS OF BIBULUS: HIS MORTIFICATION AND DEATH.-SEDITION IN ITALY, AND DEATH OF CELIUS.-ANTONIUS CROSSES OVER TO EPIRUS WITH REINFORCEMENTS.-CESAR BLOCKADES POMPEIUS WITHIN HIS LINES.-OPERATIONS IN MACEDONIA AND GREECE.-APPIUS CLAUDIUS CONSULTS THE ORACLE OF DELPHI.-CÆSAR IS BAFFLED IN HIS ATTACK ON POMPEIUS, AND WITHDRAWS INTO THESSALY.-POMPEIUS FOLLOWS, AND EFFECTS A JUNCTION WITH SCIPIO.-GIVES BATTLE AT PHARSALIA. -ROUT OF THE SENATORIAL FORCES.-FLIGHT OF POMPEIUS: DEATH OF

DOMITIUS: SURRENDER OF M. BRUTUS (JAN.—AUg. a. u. 706, b. c. 48.)

POMPEIUS had no sooner placed the sea between his fol

lowers and the cherished soil of Italy, than he began to develop the military plans which he had long Enumeration

meditated in secret. He had no further occasion of the forces of Pompeius. to practise reserve. The consuls and their party were now really at his mercy; they could not dispense with his services, for once removed from the centre of government, their authority in the camp was merely nominal. The rulers of the allied and dependent states of the East owed their thrones to the conqueror of Mithridates. While only distant and doubtful rumours had reached them of Cæsar's exploits on the shores of the western Ocean, they had before their eyes sensible proofs that his rival was the greatest captain and most powerful statesman in the world. Gratitude and fear therefore equally conspired to urge them to obey his summons, when he appointed Thessalonica for the rendezvous of his forces. Deiotarus and Dorilaus, princes of Galatia, Rhas

cupolis and Sadala of Thrace, Tarcondimotus of Cilicia, Ariobarzanes of Cappadocia, Antiochus of Commagene, were among the most conspicuous of the barbarian chieftains who flocked to his standard.' Each of them was attended by a select body of horsemen from his own country. Among the Oriental allies, Cæsar enumerates only the cavalry, the bowmen and the slingers, who formed the ordinary auxiliary force to the main body of the legionaries. But there can be no doubt that most of the tributary states and sovereigns of the east furnished also large contingents of foot-soldiers. These, however, were for the most part ill equipped and worse disciplined, and in the enumeration of combatants it was not commonly the practice of the Roman military writers to take any special account of them." The senators and knights served also in large numbers on horseback. A body of five hundred Roman cavalry, which had been left at Alexandria by Gabinius to maintain or watch the power of Ptolemæus, was brought by Cn. Pompeius, the triumvir's eldest son, who had armed, moreover, eight hundred of his slaves and labourers from the extensive estates belonging to his family. But the main strength of the army consisted, of course, in the legionary infantry. Five legions had been carried over from Italy; a sixth was formed by the union of the two incomplete divisions which Cato had commanded in Sicily; a seventh was raised from the veterans whom Sulla, Lucullus, and their successors had settled in Macedonia and Crete; two more had been hastily levied by Lentulus among the citizens of the

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1 Cæs. B. C. iii. 4.; Vell. ii. 51.

2 Cæsar computes the cavalry at 7000, the slingers and bowmen at 4000, bearing in each case an unusually large proportion to the legionary infantry. Appian, B. C. ii. 70. Lucan (vii. 360.) dwells emphatically on the numbers of these Oriental allies, and compares their variety to the forces of Cyrus, Xerxes and Agamemnon (iii. 284.). Not to insist on the testimony of the rhetorical poet, we have similar evidence in Cicero's letters; and Appian says plainly: ἔθνεσι τε πᾶσι καὶ στρατηγοῖς καὶ βασιλεῦσι καὶ δυνάσταις καὶ πόλεσι ἔγραφε κατὰ σπουδὴν ὅτι δύναιτο ἕκαστος εἰς τὸν πόλεμον συμφέρειν (Β. C. ii. 38.). Such troops could not, of course, be opposed to Cæsar's veterans in the field, but they might be serviceable in many operations of war.

republic in the province of Asia. The strength of these divisions had been considerably increased by the addition of supplemental or auxiliary cohorts of Achaians, Boeotians, Epirotes and Thessalians. Scipio, who had gone forth to his appointed province of Syria, was expected to return with the two legions stationed on that frontier. The name of Pompeius might be deemed sufficiently terrible to curb the audacity of the Parthians; but Orodes had presumed to negotiate for the cession of Syria as the price of his active alliance, and Lucceius Hirrus was despatched on a mission to amuse his vanity while he solicited his favours.' To these forces is to be added the detachment of C. Antonius recently captured by Octavius.

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These armed multitudes, to which Cæsar's enumeration is confined, were quite as large as could be conveniently supported or manœuvred, according to the principles His naval and habits of ancient warfare. Though composed armaments. partly of strange and discordant elements, partly of untrained levies, they might form, in the hands of skilful officers, a military power more formidable than any the world had yet seen. Their numbers may be stated very moderately at eighty or ninety thousand men. Pompeius employed himself in exercising them together with the utmost diligence. He condescended to go through the severe discipline of the legionary in person, hurling the pilum and brandishing the sword, on horseback and on foot, and he displayed, it was said, though fifty-eight years of age, the strength and ardour of a young recruit. At the same time every exertion was made to collect magazines of provisions and warlike stores, while a fleet of five hundred vessels of war, and an infinite number of transports, contributed by every naval power in the eastern seas, was placed under the command of Bibulus, and divided

Cæs. B. C. iii. 82.; Dion, xli. 55.

2 Eleven legions might amount to 60,000 men. The light troops and cavalry were above 11,000. The supplemental cohorts could hardly be less than 20,000 more. Plut. Pomp. 64. Cic. ad Att. ix. 9.: "Omnis hæc classis Alexandrea, Colchis, Tyro,

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into several squadrons to watch every harbour from which the enemy might issue forth, or at which he might attempt to make good his landing.'

The nobles

muster in Pompeius's camp. High estimation in which Domitius is held among them.

The overwhelming naval force which Pompeius possessed enabled him undoubtedly to throw reinforcements upon any coast where his interests were assailed by the enemy. But he would not detach a single vessel or a single cohort to the relief of his provinces or his legions. He required all his adherents to seek him in the position in which he had determined to abide the attack, and looked on with apparent apathy while his best generals and his amplest resources were torn from him. Indeed his opponent's liberality restored to him the officers whom his own negligence had allowed to fall into their hands. Afranius had followed the example of Domitius and Vibullius, in turning his arms once more against the con queror to whom he owed his freedom. The menaces of the senate left them, perhaps, no choice but to take a decided part on the one side or the other. But Pompeius was exceedingly jealous of his principal officers, especially of such as had the confidence of his party. Though compelled to entrust to them the most important commands in his army, he was by no means disposed to listen to their counsels. The fortune of war which had dislodged the partizans of the senate from so many of the positions they had undertaken to defend, had now assembled at Thessalonica all the great leaders of the aristocratic faction. Various and conflicting as were their opinions on the state of affairs, they all seemed to agree in their dislike and distrust of the champion under whom they were forced to

Sidone, Arado, Cypro, Pamphylia, Lycia, Rhodo, Chio, Byzantio, Lesbo, Smyrna, Mileto, Coo, ad intercludendos commeatus Italiæ et ad occupandas frumentarias provincias comparatur."

1 Cæs. B. C. iii. 5. Cic. (ad Att. x. 8.), in one of his fits of confidence in Pompeius's preparations: "Cujus omne consilium Themistocleum est. Existimat enim qui mare teneat, cum necesse esse rerum potiri. Itaque nunquam id egit, ut Hispaniæ per se tenerentur: navalis apparatus ei semper antiquissima cura fuit. Navigabit igitur, quum erit tempus, maximis classibus, et ad Italiam accedet."

array themselves. It was with great reluctance that Domitius resorted to Thessalonica after his escape from Massilia. His leader's desertion of him at Corfinium still rankled in his bosom; he felt that it was only by his own gallant self-devotion that the consuls, the senate, and Pompeius himself, had been enabled to escape from Italy; this was a service he never permitted his associates to forget, nor was his temper such as to brook an inferior command. But he found himself naturally in his place at the head of the proudest and most exclusive section of the nobles, and in their company he ridiculed the airs of sovereignty assumed by Pompeius among the petty potentates he had summoned to his standard.'

His discontent

levity.

Cicero also had found his way to the head-quarters of his friends. How he evaded the vigilance of Antonius does not appear. We must suppose that he withdrew Cicero arrives from Italy with the consent, if not the express at the camp. permission of Cæsar. A crafty politician might and ill-timed foresee that the presence of so discontented a spirit in the hostile camp would furnish it with the seeds of dissension rather than any accession of strength. From the moment of his arrival at Thessalonica, Cicero seems to have found himself ill at ease under the control of a military chieftain. His tardy arrival was made a subject of reproach; the absence of some of his relatives gave colour to insinuations against his sincerity, which were hardly dispelled even by the devotion to the cause manifested by his brother Quintus, who abandoned his old patron and general for the sake of his party. But Cicero revenged himself as he best might by wreaking many a bitter jest upon the apparent imbecility of his traducers. When Pompeius taunted him with having made his appearance among them so late, How can I be said to have come late, he replied, when I find nothing in readiness among you?' He was striving to conceal from himself how little

1 Plut. Pomp. 67.

2 Plut. Cic. 31.; Macrob. Saturn. ii. 3., where several of Cicero's gibes on this occasion are recorded.