All was perplexity; consequently a great council of war was held in Teanum Sidicinum (23 Jan.), at which Pompeius, Labienus, and both consuls were present.  First of all proposals of accommodation from Caesar were again submitted; even now he declared himself ready at once to dismiss his army, to hand over his provinces to the successors nominated, and to become a candidate in the regular way for the consulship, provided that Pompeius were to depart for Spain, and Italy were to be disarmed.  The answer was, that if Caesar would immediately return to his province, they would bind themselves to procure the disarming of Italy and the departure of Pompeius by a decree of the senate to be passed in due form in the capital; perhaps this reply was intended not as a bare artifice to deceive, but as an acceptance of the proposal of compromise; it was, however, in reality the opposite.  The personal conference which Caesar desired with Pompeius the latter declined, and could not but decline, that he might not by the semblance of a new coalition with Caesar provoke still more the distrust already felt by the constitutional party.  Concerning the management of the war it was agreed in Teanum, that Pompeius should take the command of the troops stationed at Luceria, on which notwithstanding their untrustworthiness all hope depended; that he should advance with these into his own and Labienus’ native country, Picenum; that he should personally call the general levy there to arms, as he had done some thirty-five years ago,(16) and should attempt at the head of the faithful Picentine cohorts and the veterans formerly under Caesar to set a limit to the advance of the enemy.

Conflicts in Picenum

Everything depended on whether Picenum would hold out until Pompeius should come up to its defence.  Already Caesar with his reunited army had penetrated into it along the coast road by way of Ancona.  Here too the preparations were in full course; in the very northernmost Picenian town Auximum a considerable band of recruits was collected under Publius Attius Varus; but at the entreaty of the municipality Varus evacuated the town even before Caesar appeared, and a handful of Caesar’s soldiers which overtook the troop not far from Auximum totally dispersed it after a brief conflict—­ the first in this war.  In like manner soon afterwards Gaius Lucilius Hirrus with 3000 men evacuated Camerinum, and Publius Lentulus Spinther with 5000 Asculum.  The men, thoroughly devoted to Pompeius, willingly for the most part abandoned their houses and farms, and followed their leaders over the frontier; but the district itself was already lost, when the officer sent by Pompeius for the temporary conduct of the defence, Lucius Vibullius Rufus—­no genteel senator, but a soldier experienced in war—­arrived there; he had to content himself with taking the six or seven thousand recruits who were saved away from the incapable recruiting officers, and conducting them for the time to the nearest rendezvous.