Caesar

So he made an expedition into Spain,[*](Cf. Caesar, B. C. i. 34-86.) having resolved first to drive out from there Afranius and Varro, Pompey’s legates, and bring their forces there and the provinces into his power, and then to march against Pompey, leaving not an enemy in his rear. And though his life was often in peril from ambuscades, and his army most of all from hunger, he did not cease from pursuing, challenging, and besieging the men until he had made himself by main force master of their camps and their forces. The leaders, however, made their escape to Pompey.

When Caesar came back to Rome, Piso, his father-in-law, urged him to send a deputation to Pompey with proposals for a settlement; but Isauricus, to please Caesar, opposed the project. So, having been made dictator by the senate, he brought home exiles, restored to civic rights the children of those who had suffered in the time of Sulla, relieved the burdens of the debtor-class by a certain adjustment of interest, took in hand a few other public measures of like character, and within eleven days abdicated the sole power, had himself declared consul with Servilius Isauricus, and entered upon his campaign.

The rest of his forces he passed by in a forced march, and with six hundred picked horsemen and five legions, at the time of the winter solstice, in the early part of January[*](48 B.C. The Roman calendar, at this time, was much in advance of the solar seasons.) (this month answers nearly to the Athenian Poseideon), put to sea, and after crossing the Ionian gulf took Oricum and Apollonia, and sent his transports back again to Brundisium for the soldiers who had been belated on their march.

These, as long as they were on the road, since they were now past their physical prime and worn out with their multitudinous wars, murmured against Caesar. Whither, pray, and to what end will this man bring us, hurrying us about and treating us like tireless and lifeless things? Even a sword gets tired out with smiting, and shield and breastplate are spared a little after so long a time of service.