ABSTRACT
Cæsar stopped only one day at Brindisi and then left hastily for Rome in a violent temper, telling his friends that since Pompey and his Senators asked for war to the death he would take them at their word and move at once to the attack of their stronghold in Spain. Curio and Cælius, who had been filled with admiration at his moderate behaviour hitherto, were dumbfounded to hear him talk in this fashion. But Cæsar had only too much reason for irritation. The effects of what had taken place during the last two months were so far-reaching that Italians had as yet been unable to collect their impressions; the result was a situation so obscure, so unprecedented and so utterly unforeseen that, despite his astonishing momentary success, Cæsar could not bring himself to face it with any degree of assurance. The Italian upper classes had now long been used to thinking of the Republic as on the eve of dissolution, but the truth had proved far worse than their gloomiest predictions. They had seen the Senate and the magistracies, the whole venerable edifice of the old Republican government, crumble to pieces within two months, under the blows of a few legions of trained soldiers, and its débris swept from the soil of Italy. It was indeed just the very suddenness and completeness of his success which filled Cæsar with dismay. He was in the perilous position of a usurper who has won one striking success over the legitimate government, thereby only provoking it to renewed exertions; he realized that after their hasty and humiliating flight Pompey and the Senate would never consent to return to Italy before they had crushed their exulting rival. No human force could now avert a civil war; and in a civil war his enemies, despite their initial failure, had far greater forces at their disposal than himself. Practically the whole of the Empire was at their command. They had supreme control of the sea; they had a large army in Spain: while they could recruit another and still more formidable force in the East. He himself on the other hand had but fourteen legions, little money and no fleet; worst of all, he had to be on his guard against the smouldering disaffection of his province. If he recalled his legions from Gaul for the civil war he would be risking the outbreak of a new Gallic rising, a dilemma upon which his adversaries placed great reliance.
