spring, the Spanish troops of Pompeius would assume the offensive in Transalpine, and his Italian troops in Cisalpine, Gaul, and Pompeius, a match for Caesar in tactics and superior to him in experience, was a formidable antagonist in such a campaign running its regular course.  Now perhaps, accustomed as he was to operate slowly and surely with superior masses, he might be disconcerted by a wholly improvised attack; and that which could not greatly discompose Caesar’s thirteenth legion after the severe trial of the Gallic surprise and the January campaign in the land of the Bellovaci,(14)—­the suddenness of the war and the toil of a winter campaign—­could not but disorganize the Pompeian corps consisting of old soldiers of Caesar or of ill-trained recruits, and still only in the course of formation.

Caesar’s Advance

Accordingly Caesar advanced into Italy.(15) Two highways led at that time from the Romagna to the south; the Aemilio-Cassian which led from Bononia over the Apennines to Arretium and Rome, and the Popillio-Flaminian, which led from Ravenna along the coast of the Adriatic to Fanum and was there divided, one branch running westward through the Furlo pass to Rome, another southward to Ancona and thence onward to Apulia.  On the former Marcus Antonius advanced as far as Arretium, on the second Caesar himself pushed forward.  Resistance was nowhere encountered; the recruiting officers of quality had no military skill, their bands of recruits were no soldiers, the inhabitants of the country towns were only anxious not to be involved in a siege.  When Curio with 1500 men approached Iguvium, where a couple of thousand Umbrian recruits had assembled under the praetor Quintus Minucius Thermus, general and soldiers took to flight at the bare tidings of his approach; and similar results on a small scale everywhere ensued.

Rome Evacuated

Caesar had to choose whether he would march against Rome, from which his cavalry at Arretium were already only about 130 miles distant, or against the legions encamped at Luceria.  He chose the latter plan.  The consternation of the opposite party was boundless.  Pompeius received the news of Caesar’s advance at Rome; he seemed at first disposed to defend the capital, but, when the tidings arrived of Caesar’s entrance into the Picenian territory and of his first successes there, he abandoned Rome and ordered its evacuation.  A panic, augmented by the false report that Caesar’s cavalry had appeared before the gates, came over the world of quality.  The senators, who had been informed that every one who should remain behind in the capital would be treated as an accomplice of the rebel Caesar, flocked in crowds out at the gates.  The consuls themselves had so totally lost their senses, that they did not even secure the treasure; when Pompeius called upon them to fetch it, for which there was sufficient time, they returned the reply that they would deem it safer, if he should first occupy Picenum.