Pompey

but, crying out that Caesar was in flight, some of them were for following in pursuit of him, others for crossing over into Italy, and others were sending their attendants and friends to Rome in order to preoccupy houses near the forum, purposing at once to become candidates for office. Many, too, of their own accord sailed to Cornelia in Lesbos with the glad tidings that the war was at an end; for Pompey had sent her there for safety.

A senate having been assembled, Afranius gave it as his opinion that they should make sure of Italy, for Italy was the greatest prize of the war, and would at once put also into the hands of her masters Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Spain, and all Gaul; and since his native land, which was of the greatest concern to Pompey, stretched out suppliant hands to him close by, it was not right to allow her to be enslaved and insulted by servants and flatterers of tyrants.

Pompey himself, however, thought it neither well for his own reputation to run away a second time from Caesar and to be pursued by him, when fortune made him the pursuer, nor right before Heaven to abandon Scipio and the men of consular rank in Thessaly and Hellas, who would at once come into the power of Caesar together with their moneys and large forces; but that he cared most for Rome who fought for her at the farthest remove, in order that she might neither suffer nor hear about any evil, but quietly await her master.

Having decided the matter in this way, Pompey set out in pursuit of Caesar, determined to avoid a battle, but to keep him under siege and harass him with lack of supplies by following close upon him. He had reasons for thinking this the best course, and besides, a saying current among the cavalry reached his ears, to the effect that as soon as they had routed Caesar they must put down Pompey himself also.

And some say this was also the reason why Pompey called upon Cato for no service of any importance, but even when marching against Caesar left him at the coast in charge of the baggage, fearing lest, if Caesar should be taken off, he himself also might be forced by Cato to lay down his command at once. While he was thus quietly following the enemy he was loudly denounced, and charges were rife that he was directing his campaign, not against Caesar, but against his country and the senate, in order that he might always be in office and never cease to have for his attendants and guards men who claimed to rule the world.

Domitius Ahenobarbus, too, by calling him Agamemnon, and King of Kings, made him odious. And Favonius was no less displeasing to him than those who used a bolder speech, when he bawled out his untimely jest: O men, this year, also, shall we eat no figs of Tusculum? And Lucius Afranius, who lay under a charge of treachery for having lost his forces in Spain,[*](He was accused of taking a bribe from Caesar for the surrender of the Spains (see the Caesar, xli. 2).) on seeing Pompey now avoiding a battle with Caesar, said he was astonished that his accusers did not go forth and fight this trafficker in provinces.