Pompey

Upon this, the city went into mourning, as in the presence of a public calamity; and Marcellus, followed by the senate, marched through the forum to meet Pompey, and standing before him said: I bid thee, Pompey, to defend thy country, to employ the forces now in readiness, and to levy others. Lentulus also said the same, being one of the consuls elected for the coming year.

But when Pompey began to levy recruits, some refused to obey the summons, and a few came together reluctantly and without zest, but the greater part cried out for a settlement of the controversy. For Antony, in defiance of the senate, had read before the people a letter of Caesar containing propositions which were attractive to the multitude. He asked, namely, that both Pompey and he should give up their provinces, disband their armies, put themselves in the hands of the people, and render an account of what they had done.

But Lentulus, who was by this time consul, would not call the senate together; Cicero, however, who was just returned from Cilicia, tried to effect a settlement of the dispute on these terms, namely, that Caesar should renounce Gaul and dismiss the rest of his forces, but should retain two legions and Illyricum, and wait for his second consulship.

And when Pompey was dissatisfied with this, the friends of Caesar conceded that he should dismiss one of the two legions; but since Lentulus still opposed, and Cato cried out that Pompey was blundering again in allowing himself to be deceived, the settlement came to naught.

And now word was brought that Caesar had seized Ariminum,[*](In January, 49 B.C. See the Caesar, chapter xxxii. ) a large city of Italy, and was marching directly upon Rome with all his forces. But this was false. For he was marching with no more than three hundred horsemen and five thousand men-at-arms; the rest of his forces were beyond the Alps, and he did not wait for them, since he wished to fall upon his enemies suddenly, when they were in confusion and did not expect him, rather than to give them time and fight them after they were prepared.

And so, when he was come to the river Rubicon, which was the boundary of the province allotted to him, he stood in silence and delayed to cross, reasoning with himself, of course, upon the magnitude of his adventure. Then, like one who casts himself from a precipice into a yawning abyss, he closed the eyes of reason and put a veil between them and his peril, and calling out in Greek to the bystanders these words only, Let the die be cast, he set his army across.