While that great business was being transacted at every point, Caesar was conquering Spain and the west of the world till he had finished, and they all submitted to him and came into the mustering of the great battle. Then he fared forward out of the regions of Spain to lead his armies after Pompey and contend with him for the east of the world. Then his own soldiers mutinied dangerously against him, and tried to
Haughty was Caesar's answer to those men. Nevertheless they were cleverly stayed by him, and when they had decided on remaining, those who had falsified counsel and the authors of the sedition and the revolt were separated from them and beheaded, in Caesar's presence, in the centre of the camp.
Thereat, when Caesar had made his armies firm, he sent forward Antony, a leader of his people, together with the pick of his force, and ordered them to reach on the tenth day the city of Brundisium on the brink of the Adriatic sea on the northern coast of the land of Latium. He enjoined them to collect all the vessels which they should find on the rivers Hydrus and Taras, and on the strands of the cities of Leuca and Sipus, and in the havens of the whole Adriatic sea near Mount Garganus, so that they might be ready, seaworthy and prepared to go up out of them to the Adriatic sea, and to wrest Greece and the East from Pompey.
Caesar himself, however, came to Rome together with a few of his soldiers, and he appointed himself to all the Roman ranks of honour from decán to dictator. Then he went to the other chief city of Italy, Alba Longa, and therein he perfected all the rites of his consulate, as was usual.
Thence he marched to the city of Brundisium to meet Antony with his people. They, however, did not come so readily to the city of Brundisium. To wait for them seemed tedious to Caesar. On this, then, he settled. He brought his fleet on the Adriatic sea and proceeded with his troops till he took haven and harbour in Epirus in the regions of Magna Graecia.
Epirus, that is a province in Greece. It has the name
So then Caesar landed and pitched his camp, face to face with Pompey's camp, between the rivers Genusus and Apsus. That was the first district in which their camps met after the breach of peace between them; and so near were they in camp that each was hearing the other's voice, and every man saw another in each of the two camps. This is what delayed the battle then, the failure of Antony with his soldiers to come to Caesar. Great was Caesar's distress and impatience because those troops had not joined him. He sent despatches and writings to Antony to reprimand him and to entreat him to come quickly with his troops to the battle.
This is the purport of those writings: ‘Conferment of life, and inquiry as to health from Caesar the lord of the world, to his loyal leader and his faithful followers, namely, to Antony with his soldiers! O Antony’, quoth Caesar, ‘why dost thou retard the Fates and the success, for we are quite ready if only you would come to us. No hardship is it for thee to come quickly to my aid. Neither in Africa, nor in Spain nor in the far-off places of the world am I importuning thee or hastening thee; but (thou art) in the neighbouring districts of Italy, near to me, with no land of warfare or perilous sea between us. Take heed that we do not persuade thee to go to a pitched battle, we being absent. But we are calling on thee to come with us to the fight, I myself being before thee on the battle-field.’
‘A strange thing it is, that I should enter my foemen's territories without fear, while thou, as seems to us, art afraid of coming into my camp, Ah do not forbid one of my own people to come to me, for if I know them, though the sea were stormy they would more willingly repair to my arms than
So far Caesar's communications with Antony, and he did not cease from them, but sent messengers, one after another, to Antony. Yet nevertheless Antony came not. That was a great heartbreak to Caesar, and this is the plan of which he thought, namely, when the third hour of the night arrived, he rose from his bed and fared forward alone to the shore of the sea. There he found a small vessel with a lengthy cable out of it attached to the land, and the master of the vessel in a narrow hut built of reeds on the edge of the shore. Caesar struck a blow of the knocker on the door of that house. The frugal master of the house—Amyclas was his name—answered: ‘Who is it that wakens us at this hour?’ says Amyclas: ‘who is it that expects any valuable from us? No one has business with us, unless some shipwrecked man has come hither from a wave or a rock.’
That is what he said; and he rose from his couch, and put a flaming rope under the saved-up fuel, and it blazed. He opened the door to Caesar, without fear or dread. Hence is manifest the goodness and ease of the frugal life; for though the camps of the world's armies were close to that house, this would not have caused its master trouble or anxiety, for he possessed neither herds nor treasures.
Then Caesar entered the house and said: ‘O warrior, if thou do what I shall tell thee, good is the godsend that has befallen thee. Thou wilt have great prosperity and a distinguished life with me, if I obtain from thee what I desire.’
Thereat they launched their little vessel on the bitter-green brine, and began to pass slowly over the blue-fringed Adriatic sea between Epirus and Italy. A mighty storm was found and a vast injury therefrom. Never before was there found on the sea an escape from a danger like to that danger, to wit, being in the tiny vessel on the enormous sea in the ruinous tempest. Yet that great peril was undauntedly endured by Caesar. Little was his voice lowered, or his nature (depressed), when suffering that great danger.
They were thus on the point of death for the space of the night till morning, until on the morrow, in the early morning, the wave cast them again into the harbour of Epirus. It seemed to Caesar like a kingdom without opposition when his foot touched the land at that hour. Then he turned to his camp, taking with him Amyclas, who so long as he lived, never lost Caesar's favour.
Thereafter at daybreak a great calm came upon the sea. When Antony and his army saw that, they unmoored their slenderprowed, wide-breasted barques, and roomy, long-blue galleys forth from the harbour of the city of Brundisium, and began to voyage over the Adriatic sea straight to Epirus. The sail drove them past the island of Lissa, till they arrived in the harbour of the Nymphaeans in the country of Epirus.
Now when Pompey heard that all Caesar's forces had come to him in one place, he was sure and certain that they would not separate on that occasion save by some decision of battle. This is the plan he then formed, to send the high queen Cornelia, together with the ladies in his camp, away by sea to the isle of Lesbos, so that howsoever Fortune would distinguish between him and Caesar on the day of the great battle, the high queen and the noblewomen might be in a safe place, resting in that island.
Pompey and Cornelia were reluctant to sever in that wise. Sad, fearful, troubled, tearful, mournful was their converse and their colloquy on the night before they parted, without sleep, without rest till early morning; and on the morrow her household and her trusty retainers took her to the island of Lesbos: and she did not stir out of that island until the great battle was delivered.
So far one of the foretales of the Great Battle of Thessaly. The Adventures of Caesar is the name of the story.