I. THE CIVIL WAR

We do not know exactly where the Rubicon was; nor are we sure that it was on 10 January that Caesar crossed it (by the sun it was nearly two months earlier). But it is possible that on doing so he did say, quoting a Greek comedy by Menander, ‘let the die be cast’.

For the events of the next weeks, we have Caesar’s own account, which can occasionally be convicted by Cicero’s correspondence (which includes some letters from Caesar and Pompey themselves, as well as from others) of apologetic bias. Dividing his single legion into two parts he marched with five cohorts to Ariminum, and sent Antony, probably immediately, to Arretium to block the route from Rome by the Via Cassia. He himself, on reaching Ancona, held the head of the Via Flaminia. When news of this reached Rome on 17 January, Pompey insisted on abandoning the panic-stricken city, and retired with the consuls and many senators to Campania. Caesar’s other troops began to come up, and perhaps even while abortive negotiations were in progress he occupied all Picenum. Several small garrisons went over to him; L. Domitius Ahenobarbus used others, and troops he had raised himself – the equivalent of three legions – to make a stand at the strategic crossroads of Corfinium, refusing as the new proconsul of Gallia Transalpina to obey the pleas of Pompey, the proconsul of the Spains, to join him at Luceria in Apulia. But Domitius was surrounded and forced by his men to surrender. Caesar ostentatiously released all prisoners of senatorial or equestrian rank, not to mention the state funds in Domitius’ charge, and recruited the troops (many Domitius’ own tenants) whom he then despatched to Sicily.

Pompey withdrew to Brundisium, whither he had already sent some of his men. On 4 March the consuls put to sea from the town with part of the forces, only a few days before Caesar arrived, now with three veteran and three new legions, to find Pompey still present. But on 17 March, in spite of Caesar’s attempts to make the harbour unusable, he escaped the attempted blockade and crossed to Epirus.