Fortune kept those two chieftains, Pompey and Caesar, equally poised between prosperity and adversity, during that season. Then came the day of the calends of January and the beginning of the new year. That is the time at which the Romans always changed consuls and wardens and lieutenants, and the orderings of warfare and hosting. Now at that time the Romans had two choice consuls whose names were Lentulus and Agellus. Till then the term of their consulate extended, nevertheless they still convened the assembly of the army, and the business of the senate, and the ordering of the regal authority on that day.
Where that great meeting was convened was in Epirus in the districts of Magna Graecia, for, dreading Caesar, they durst not visit Rome. Important ordinances were made by the Romans at that meeting. They determined that Pompey so long as he lived should have the chief command. They appointed wardens and lieutenants over the provinces of the world to levy their tribute and to muster towards the great battle the hosts that had been at first under their control, namely, the many nations of Africa and the numerous hosts of Asia and the whole of the East—for Caesar had seized the supremacy of the world from Rome westward.
Then they broke up that assembly of Epirus, and they all, save only one man, Appius a lieutenant of the Pompeians, went together, following Pompey towards the great battle. This is the plan of which Appius thought, to go and ask prophets and wizards which of the generals would have good or evil of that great warfare, so that he might help the one whose success was the greater.
The way he went to make that enquiry was to the very centre of the world, the temple of Apollo on Mount Parnassus. This is the answer he got from Apollo's priestess: that he should find his protection from the perils of that great battle and that he would have rest from warfare in the valley of the Euboean side.
What he hence inferred was that he would gain the realm of Euboea. Howbeit that was not the real significance; but when he was on the Euboean sea, approaching the land, a great storm fell upon him, so that his ships were shattered and he himself was drowned. The seawave bore his body to land, and he was buried in a valley of the country of Euboea. So in that wise Apollo's prophecy was fulfilled.
So far one of the foretales of the Great Battle of Thessaly. The tragical Death of Appius is the name of that story.