the king. As they neared the shore, Cornelia and her friends, who were anxiously watching the event, had good hopes when they saw some of the king's people assembling at the landing-place as if they were going to give Pompeius an honourable welcome. But while Pompeius was taking the hand of Philippus to rise more easily, Septimius stabbed him in the back, and Achillas and Salvius also fell upon him. Drawing his toga with both hands close over his face and making no resistance, but only uttering a groan, Pompeius submitted to the blows of the murderers. A shriek from Cornelia's vessel was heard even to the land. The anchors were quickly raised, and a strong breeze carried the fugitives to the open sea out of the pursuit of the Egyptian ships.

4

The murderers cut off the head of Pompeius and threw the naked body out of the boat. Philippus stayed by it till the people were satisfied with looking at the corpse, when he washed it with sea-water, wrapped it in his own tunic, and made a funeral pile out of the wreck of a small fishing-boat. While he was engaged in this pious duty, he was joined by an old Roman who in his youth had served under Pompeius, and now requested that he might be allowed to assist in the obsequies of Rome's greatest general.

On the next day L. Lentulus, who was coming from Cyprus and did not know what had happened, was sailing along the shore when he saw the pile and Philippus standing by it. Lentulus landed, but was seized and put to death. This is Plutarch's story. Caesar after speaking of the murder of Pompeius, merely says that L. Lentulus also was seized by the king and put to death in prison. He was the man, who in the division of the spoil before the battle of Pharsalia, claimed the house of Hortensius, and the gardens of Caesar with his house at Baiae (p. 199).

4 Pompeius was born in B.c. 106 on the day before the first of October of the unreformed Calendar, as Plinius states (H. N. 37. c. 2, 6). He was murdered in B.C. 48 on the day before his birthday, and had therefore exactly completed his fifty-eighth year (Velleius, ii. 53). As September at this time had only twenty-nine days, Pompeius was murdered on the 28th of September; on the day, says Dion Cassius in his chapter of reflections (42. c. 5) on which he had once triumphed over Mithridates and the pirates. (Vol. iii. 384, where there is a mistake about the day, which is corrected here.)

In the course of time the tomb of Pompeius was entirely covered with sand; and some bronze figures which the relatives of Pompeius dedicated near Mount Casius were so much disfigured, by the atmosphere probably, that they were carried into the adytum or inmost place of a temple, which, it appears, had been built there. During the life of Appian, as he tells us (B. C. ii. 86), the emperor Hadrian, when he was in those parts, discovered the place, cleared the monument of the rubbish and restored the figures (Spartianus, Hadrian c. 14; Dion, 69. c. 11). It is stated by Plutarch (Pomp. c. 80) that Cornelia obtained the remains of her husband and interred them in his Alban villa. The monument at Mount Casius then was a cenotaph.

CHAPTER XIX.

GENERAL STATE OF AFFAIRS.

B.C. 48.

ABOUT the same time, says Caesar (B. C. iii. 100), as the battle of Pharsalia D. Laelius with his fleet arrived at Brundisium, and, as Libo had done before, he took possession of an island which lay in front of the harbour. Vatinius, who was in command at Brundisium prepared some decked boats, and contriving to draw from their position the ships of Laelius, he seized in the narrow entrance of the harbour a quinquereme and two smaller vessels which had advanced too far. He also placed cavalry at different points along the coast to prevent the enemy from getting water; but as the season of the year was favourable, Laelius was able by employing transports to bring water from Corcyra and Dyrrhachium, and he maintained his position until he heard of the battle of Pharsalia.

About this time also C. Cassius Longinus arrived in Sicily with his fleet of Syrian, Phoenician and Cilician ships. Caesar's fleet was divided: one part was at Vibo (Bivona) on the south-west coast of Italy not far from the Straits under the praetor P. Sulpicius: the other part was at Messana in Sicily under M. Pomponius. Cassius reached Messana before Pomponius knew anything about his approach, and finding him unprepared and everything in confusion, he took advantage of a strong favourable wind and sent against the fleet of Pomponius a number of merchant vessels filled with pine-wood, pitch, tow and other combustibles. The fire-ships destroyed the thirty-five vessels of Pomponius, of which twenty were decked ships. Such was the alarm in Messana

that, though there was a legion there, the place was with difficulty defended against the enemy's attack; and if it had not happened that news was brought just at this moment of Caesar's victory by horsemen stationed in relays, probably along the south-west coast of Italy, it was the general opinion that Messana would have been taken. But the town was saved by the opportune arrival of this intelligence. Cassius now sailed to Vibo, where the ships of Sulpicius about forty in number were lying close to the shore for fear of an attack; for we must conclude that the news of the destruction of the fleet at Messana had reached Vibo. Cassius used the same stratagem here also, and the wind being favourable he drove his fire-ships against the fleet of Sulpicius. The flames seized the two extremities of the line and five vessels were destroyed. The wind blew strong and all the fleet was in danger of being burnt, when those veteran soldiers, who had been left sick at Vibo for the protection of the fleet, were roused by this disgraceful condition of affairs, and without waiting for orders embarked on the vessels and put off from the shore. The fleet of Cassius was attacked with such vigour that two quinqueremes were taken, in one of which was Cassius, but he got into a boat and escaped. Two of his triremes were sunk. Soon after the news of the battle of Pharsalia was confirmed, and the partisans of Pompeius could no longer doubt the truth, for up to this time they thought that it was a false report spread by Caesar's commanders and friends. Cassius and his fleet now sailed away from these parts.

The victory at Pharsalia secured to Caesar the possession of Greece. Fufius Calenus, who had been sent to the south before the battle, took among other places Piraeus the port of Athens, which was defenceless, for Sulla had greatly damaged the walls, and we assume that the damage had not been repaired (vol. ii. chap. xxi.). Athens however held out, though the territory was ravaged by the Roman soldiers, but after the victory at Pharsalia, the city surrendered, and the people were not punished. Caesar remarked, as it is said, that the guilty living were saved by the dead; by which he meant that the Athenians were pardoned for the sake of their ancestors' glory and merit (Dion Cassius, 42, c. 14). Megara resisted Calenus,

but finally was taken by storm and treachery combined. Many of the citizens were massacred and the rest were sold, which Calenus considered to be a proper punishment for their obstinacy; but as it appeared that the city might become completely deserted, some of the prisoners were sold to friends for a very small sum with the view of being restored to liberty. Calenus then led his troops against Patrae (Patras) in the north-western part of Peloponnesus. This town, as Dion states (42, c. 13) had been occupied by Cato and those with him, when they were sailing south from Corcyra, and at Patrae they were joined by Petreius and Faustus Sulla, the son-in-law of Pompeius. But when Calenus approached Patrae, Cato and his men quitted the town, and Calenus took the place without resistance.

After the battle of Pharsalia M. Octavius retired to Illyricum with a large fleet. Gabinius, who had been recalled from exile and had joined Caesar, took no part in the war against his old patron Pompeius, but he was now summoned to support Q. Cornificius, Caesar's legatus in Illyricum. Cornificius was sent to Illyricum in the summer of B.C. 48 with two legions (Bell. Alex. c. 42), and though the province contained small means for the support of troops, and had been exhausted by the war about Dyrrhachium, and by internal dissensions, Cornificius not only maintained himself there, but got possession of several hill forts, which had given those who held them the opportunity of coming down to plunder the country. The booty taken in these forts, though it was small, pleased the soldiers of Cornificius. With the few ships which the town of Iader (Zara) could furnish, for this place had always been faithful to Caesar, Cornificius seized some of the dispersed vessels of Octavius, and with other vessels which he had taken he was now a match for his enemy by sea. At this time when Caesar was pursuing Pompeius, Cornificius heard that many of those who had escaped from Pharsalia, had entered Illyricum. Accordingly he wrote to Gabinius to come over the sea with the new troops lately raised in Italy and to aid him in protecting the province, and if his help should not be required there, to lead his forces into Macedonia, for Cornificius supposed that Macedonia and the adjoining parts would renew the war so long as Pompeius was alive.