CESAR CROSSES THE RUBICON.

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ready to support him to the utmost. They not only offered to serve without pay, but actually offered him money for the expenses of the war. Only one officer out of the whole army failed him. This one slipped away secretly, and fled to Pompey, and Cæsar sent all his baggage after him.

Cæsar sent orders to Gaul beyond the Alps for two legions to follow him, and he set out toward Rome with the one legion-5,000 men- that was with him. About twenty miles from Ravenna, a little stream called the Rubicon formed part of the boundary between the territory of Rome proper and the provinces which had been assigned to Cæsar. To cross this boundary with an armed force was to declare war; but as the Senate had already by its actions more than once openly declared war, Cæsar had no hesitation in crossing the boundary. He passed it, and marched ten miles onward to Rimini. There he halted and waited for the two legions ordered from Gaul, one of which reached him. about the end of January, and the other about the middle of February.

By the time that Cæsar had reached Rimini, the rumor had reached Rome that he was coming, and a panic seized his enemies throughout the whole city. Their excited imaginations and guilty fears pictured him as coming with all his legions, accompanied by hosts of the terrible barbarians of Gaul, hurrying on by forced marches, nearer and yet nearer, and breathing forth fiery wrath. "Flight, instant flight, was the only safety. Up they rose, consuls, prætors, senators, leaving wives and children and property to their fate, not halting even to take the money out of the treasury, but contenting themselves with leaving it locked. On foot, on horseback, in litters, in carriages, they fled for their lives to find safety under Pompey's wing in Capua."-Froude."

Instead of Cæsar's marching toward Rome, however, he was waiting quietly at Rimini for his legions to come from Gaul, and his waiting there was working doubly to his advantage, to say nothing of the results of the panic-stricken

fears of his enemies in Rome. Not only did the two legions come promptly from Gaul, but troops flocked to him from all the country around; and cities on the way to Rome began to declare for him, and were ready to open their gates as soon as he should arrive. Ahenobarbus, with a few thousand men, occupied a strong place in the mountains directly in Cæsar's way. Cæsar surrounded the place, and captured the whole body of them. He then let them all go. Ahenobarbus and some of his officers went away, but his troops declared for Cæsar. As soon as Pompey and the nobles heard of the capture of Ahenobarbus and the desertion of these troops, they took up their flight again for Brundusium on the east coast of Italy, where they might take ships for Epirus. The greater part of them sailed away at once. Pompey remained with a portion of his army for the ships to return to take them away. Cæsar hurried to Brundusium, where he arrived on the ninth of

March. Pompey was there. Cæsar asked for a meeting, but Pompey refused. Cæsar began a siege, but the ships soon came, and Pompey and his army sailed away for Durazzo on the coast of Epirus. Cæsar had no ships, and could follow the fugitives no farther. He therefore went directly to Rome. She threw wide her gates to receive him.

The remains of the Senate was convened by the tribunes who had fled to Cæsar, but it would do nothing. The assembly of the people voted him the money in the treasury. He took what he needed, and as Spain and the Mediterranean Coast of Gaul were yet subject to Pompey, he went in a few days to bring these into subjection. This was all accomplished before winter. He was made dictator in his abHe returned to Rome in October. He appointed a day for the election of consuls for the year 48, and himself and Servilius Isauricus were chosen without opposition. Thus he was elected consul for the very year that had been promised him long before by the Senate and assembly, although the Senate had declared that he never should have

sence.

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CESAR DICTATOR, DEMI-GOD, AND DEITY. it at all. The election of the other lawful magistrates soon followed, the form of legal government was restored, and he set out at once to find Pompey and the Senate. He marched to Brundusium, and sailed to Epirus. There he found that Pompey had gone to Macedonia. After much maneuvering, the armies met at Pharsalia in Thessaly, and Pompey's army was completely routed. Pompey fled to Egypt. Cæsar followed closely; but Pompey had been murdered and beheaded before he had fairly landed, and only his head was preserved and rendered an unwelcome present to Cæsar.

Cæsar spent the time till the autumn of 47 setting things in order in Egypt and the East, then he returned to Rome. Finding that Pompey was dead, and that all hope of support from him was gone, Cæsar's enemies in Rome became his most servile flatterers. Those who had plunged the State into civil war rather than allow him while absent to be even a candidate for the consulship, now in his absence made him dictator for a whole year, and were ready to heap upon him other preferences without limit.

A part of the year 46 was spent in subduing the opposing forces in Africa. This was soon accomplished, and the servile flatterers went on with their fawning adulations. Even before his return, the Senate voted in his favor a national thanksgiving to continue forty days. When he returned, they voted him not one triumph, but four, with intervals of several days between, and that his triumphal car should be drawn by white horses. They made him inspector of public morals for three years. And as though they would be as extravagant in their adulation as they had been in their condemnation, they voted him dictator for ten years, with the right to nominate the consuls and prætors each year; that in the Senate his chair should always be between those of the two consuls; that he should preside in all the games of the circus; that his image carved in ivory should be borne in processions among the images of