Pompey to draw up their reply. Pompey intrusted the duty to an incapable person named Sestius, and the answer was ill-written, awkward, and wanting on the only point which would have proved his sincerity. Pompey declined the proposed interview. Caesar must evacuate Rimini, and return to his province; afterwards, at some time unnamed, Pompey would go to Spain, and other matters should be arranged to Caesar's satisfaction. Caesar must give securities that he would abide by his promise to dismiss his troops; and meanwhile the consular levies would be continued.[4]
To Cicero these terms seemed to mean a capitulation clumsily disguised. Caesar interpreted them differently. To him it appeared that he was required to part with his own army, while Pompey was forming another. No time was fixed for the departure to Spain. He might be himself named consul, yet Pompey might be in Italy to the end of the year with an army independent of him. Evidently there was distrust on both sides, yet on Caesar's part a distrust not undeserved. Pompey would not see him. He had admitted to Cicero that he desired a war to prevent Caesar from being consul, and at this very moment was full of hopes and schemes for carrying it on successfully. "Pompey writes," reported Cicero on the 28th of January, "that in a few days he will have a force on which he can rely. He will occupy Picenum,[5] and we are then to return to Rome. Labienus assures him that Caesar is utterly weak. Thus he is in better spirits." [6]
[Sidenote: February, B.C. 49.] A second legion had by this time arrived at Rimini. Caesar considered that if the Senate really desired peace, their disposition would be quickened by further pressure. He sent Antony across the mountains to Arezzo, on the straight road to Rome; and he pushed on himself toward Ancona, before Pompey had time to throw himself in the way. The towns on the way opened their gates to him. The municipal magistrates told the commandants that they could not refuse to entertain Caius Caesar, who had done such great things for the Republic. The officers fled. The garrisons joined Caesar's legions. Even a colony planted by Labienus sent a deputation with offers of service. Steadily and swiftly in gathering volume the army of the north came on. At Capua all was consternation. "The consuls are helpless," Cicero said. "There has been no levy. The commissioners do not even try to excuse their failure. With Caesar pressing forward and our general doing nothing, men will not give in their names. The will is not wanting, but they are without hope. Pompey, miserable and incredible though it be, is prostrate. He has no courage, no purpose, no force, no energy.... Caius Cassius came on the 7th to Capua, with an order from Pompey to the consuls to go to Rome and bring away the money from the treasury. How are they to go without an escort, or how return? The consuls say he must go himself first to Picenum. But Picenum is lost.--Caesar will soon be in Apulia, and Pompey on board ship. What shall I do? I should not doubt had there not been such shameful mis-management, and had I been myself consulted. Caesar invites me to peace, but his letter was written before his advance." [7]
Desperate at the lethargy of their commander, the aristocracy tried to force him into movement by acting on their own account. Domitius, who had been appointed Caesar's successor, was most interested in his defeat. He gathered a party of young lords and knights and a few thousand men, and flung himself into Corfinium, a strong position in the Apennines, directly in Caesar's path. Pompey had still his two legions, and Domitius sent an express to tell him that Caesar's force was still small, and that with a slight effort he might enclose him in the mountains. Meanwhile Domitius himself tried to break the bridge over the Pescara. He was too late. Caesar had by this time nearly 30,000 men. The Cisalpine territories in mere enthusiasm had raised twenty-two cohorts for him. He reached the Pescara while the bridge was still standing. He surrounded Corfinium with the impregnable lines which had served him so well in Gaul, and the messenger sent to Capua came back with cold comfort. Pompey had simply ordered Domitius to retreat from a position which he ought not to have occupied, and to join him in Apulia. It was easy to say Retreat! No retreat was possible. Domitius and his companions proposed to steal away in the night. They were discovered. Their own troops arrested them, and carried them as prisoners to Caesar. Fortune had placed in his hands at the outset of the campaign the man who beyond others had been the occasion of it. Domitius would have killed Caesar like a bandit if he had caught him. He probably expected a similar fate for himself. Caesar received his captives calmly and coldly. He told them that they had made an ungrateful return to him for his services to his country; and then dismissed them all, restoring even Domitius's well-filled military chest, and too proud to require a promise from him that he would abstain personally from further hostility. His army, such as it was, followed the general example, and declared for Caesar.
The capture of Corfinium and the desertion of the garrison made an end of hesitation. Pompey and the consuls thought only of instant flight, and hurried to Brindisi, where ships were waiting for them; and Caesar, hoping that the evident feeling of Italy would have its effect with the reasonable part of the Senate, sent Cornelius Balbus, who was on intimate terms with many of them, to assure them of his eagerness for peace, and to tell Cicero especially that he would be well contented to live under Pompey's rule if he could have a guarantee for his personal safety.[8]
[Sidenote: March B.C. 49.] Cicero's trials had been great, and were not diminishing. The account given by Balbus was simply incredible to him. If Caesar was really as well disposed as Balbus represented, then the senatorial party, himself included, had acted like a set of madmen. It might be assumed, therefore, that Caesar was as meanly ambitious, as selfish, as revolutionary as their fears had represented him, and that his mildness was merely affectation. But what then? Cicero wished for himself to be on the right side, but also to be on the safe side. Pompey's was the right side, the side, that is, which, for his own sake, he would prefer to see victorious. But was Pompey's the safe side? or rather, would it be safe to go against him? The necessity for decision was drawing closer. If Pompey and the consuls went abroad, all loyal senators would be expected to follow them, and to stay behind would be held treason. Italy was with Caesar; but the East, with its treasures, its fleets, its millions of men, this was Pompey's, heart and soul. The sea was Pompey's. Caesar might win for the moment, but Pompey might win in the long run. The situation was most perplexing. Before the fall of Corfinium, Cicero had poured himself out upon it to his friend. "My connections, personal and political," he said, "attach me to Pompey. If I stay behind, I desert my noble and admirable companions, and I fall into the power of a man whom I know not how far I can trust. He shows in many ways that he wishes me well. I saw the tempest impending, and I long ago took care to secure his good-will. But suppose him to be my friend indeed, is it becoming in a good and valiant citizen, who has held the highest offices and done such distinguished things, to be in the power of any man? Ought I to expose myself to the danger, and perhaps disgrace, which would lie before me, should Pompey recover his position? This on one side; but now look at the other. Pompey has shown neither conduct nor courage, and he has acted throughout against my advice and judgment. I pass over his old errors: how he himself armed this man against the constitution; how he supported his laws by violence in the face of the auspices; how he gave him Further Gaul, married his daughter, supported Clodius, helped me back from exile indeed, but neglected me afterward; how he prolonged Caesar's command, and backed him up in everything; how in his third consulship, when he had begun to defend the constitution, he yet moved the tribunes to curry a resolution for taking Caesar's name in his absence, and himself sanctioned it by a law of his own; how he resisted Marcus Marcellus, who would have ended Caesar's government on the 1st of March. Let us forget all this: but what was ever more disgraceful than the flight from Rome? What conditions would not have been preferable? He will restore the constitution, you say, but when? by what means? Is not Picenum lost? Is not the road open to the city? Is not our money, public and private, all the enemy's? There is no cause, no rallying point for the friends of the constitution.... The rabble are all for Caesar, and many wish for revolution.... I saw from the first that Pompey only thought of flight: if I now follow him, whither are we to go? Caesar will seize my brother's property and mine, ours perhaps sooner than others', as an assault on us would be popular. If I stay, I shall do no more than many good men did in Cinna's time.--Caesar may be my friend, not certainly, but perhaps; and he may offer me a triumph which it would be dangerous to refuse, and invidious with the "good" to accept. Oh, most perplexing position!--while I write, word comes that Caesar is at Corfinium. Domitius is inside, with a strong force and eager to fight. I cannot think Pompey will desert him." [9]
[Sidenote: February, B.C. 49.] Pompey did desert Domitius, as has been seen. The surrender