a few galleys to his fleet he went to Cilicia, and thence to Cyprus. There he is informed that, by the consent of all the inhabitants of Antioch[52] and Roman citizens who traded there, the castle had been seized to shut him out of the town; and that messengers had been dispatched to all those who were reported to have taken refuge in the neighboring states, that they should not come to Antioch; that if they did so, it would be attended with imminent danger to their lives. The same thing had happened to Lucius Lentulus, who had been Consul the year before, and to Publius Lentulus, a consular senator, and to several others at Rhodes,[53] who having followed Pompey in his flight, and arrived at the island, were not admitted into the town or port; and having received a message to leave that neighborhood, set sail much against their will; for the rumor of Cæsar's approach had now reached those states.
Pompey, being informed of these proceedings, laid aside his design of going to Syria, and having taken the public money from the farmers of the revenue, and borrowed more from some private friends, and having put on board his ships a large quantity of brass for military purposes, and two thousand armed men, whom he partly selected from the slaves of the tax farmers, and partly collected from the merchants, and such persons as each of his friends thought fit on this occasion, he sailed for Pelusium.[54] It happened that King Ptolemy,[55] a minor, was there with a considerable army, engaged in war with his sister Cleopatra, whom a few months before, by the assistance of his relatives and friends, he had expelled from the kingdom; and her camp lay at a small distance from his. To him Pompey applied to be permitted to take refuge in Alexandria, and to be protected in his calamity by his powerful assistance, in consideration of the friendship and amity which had subsisted between his father and him. But Pompey's deputies, having executed their commission, began to converse with less restraint with the king's troops, and to advise them to act with friendship to Pompey, and not to think meanly of his bad fortune. In Ptolemy's army were several of Pompey's soldiers, of whom Gabinius[56] had received the command in Syria, and had brought them over to Alexandria, and at the conclusion of the war had left with Ptolemy the father of the young king.
The king's friends, who were regents of the kingdom during the minority, being informed of these things, either induced by fear, as they afterward declared, lest Pompey should corrupt the king's army, and seize on Alexandria[57] and Egypt, or despising his bad fortune, as in adversity friends commonly change to enemies, in public gave a favorable answer to his deputies, and desired him to come to the king; but secretly laid a plot against him, and dispatched Achillas, captain of the king's guards, a man of singular boldness, and Lucius Septimius, a military tribune, to assassinate him. Being kindly addrest by them, and deluded by an acquaintance with Septimius, because in the war with the pirates the latter had commanded a company under him, he embarked in a small boat, with a few attendants, and was there murdered by Achillas and Septimius. In like manner, Lucius Lentulus was seized by the king's order, and put to death in prison. …
FOOTNOTES:
[33] Cicero, whose praise of Cæsar as a writer has been shared by many readers since his time, described Cæsar's works as "unadorned, straightforward, and elegant, their ornament being stript off as it were a garment." Cæsar did his work so well that "he has deterred all men of sound taste from touching him."
[34] From Book IV of the "Commentaries on the Gallic War." Translated by McDivett and W. S. Bohn. The site of this bridge is believed to be in the neighborhood of Cologne.
[35] The Suevi were migratory Germans who, in Cæsar's time, occupied the eastern banks of the Rhine in and about the present country of Baden.
[36] From Book V of the "Commentaries on the Gallic War."
[37] The Belgæ comprised various tribes that lived between the Seine and the Rhine and were the most warlike of the Gauls.
[38] Cæsar's error here has often been commented on, Spain lying to the south, rather than to the west, of Britain.
[39] Now known as the Isle of Man.
[40] Cassivelaunus was a chieftain of the Britons who had been entrusted with the supreme command against Cæsar. His own territory lay north of the Thames.
[41] Bede, the learned Benedictine, who lived in the eighth century, says that, in his time, remains of these stakes were still to be seen.
[42] These people occupied what are now the counties of Essex and Middlesex.
[43] The translator notes that Tacitus has remarked that Britain was surveyed, rather than conquered, by Cæsar. He gives the honor of its real conquest to his own father-in-law, Agricola. While the Roman armies "owe much to the military virtues of Agricola as displayed in England, Cæsar," adds the translator, "did what no one had done before him; he levied tribute upon the Britons and effectually paved the way for all that Rome subsequently accomplished in this island."
[44] From Book II of the "Commentaries on the Gallic War."
[45] The Nervii were one of the Belgic tribes and are understood to have been the most warlike of them all.
[46] From Book III of the "Commentaries on the Civil War." Pharsalia is a district of Thessaly in Greece. Cæsar's army numbered 22,000 legionaries and 1,000 cavalry; Pompey's, 45,000 legionaries and 7,000 cavalry.
[47] Pompey's army having been recruited from aristocratic families and their dependents, was not so much accustomed to the severities of war as were the soldiers of Cæsar, recruited largely from the populace.
[48] The modern Durazzo, a seaport on the Adriatic in Albania. It was founded by colonies from Corfu about 625 B.C. and became important afterward as a terminus of one of the great Roman roads. Pompey here defeated Cæsar a short time before he was himself defeated at Pharsalia.
[49] Cæsar on this occasion is said to have advised his soldiers to aim at the faces of Pompey's cavalry, who, being composed principally of the young noblemen of Rome, dreaded a scar in the face more than death itself.
[50] Amphipolis, a city of Macedonia, originally Thracian, but colonized from Athens. It was situated three miles inland from the Ægean Sea.