ultimate cause of the failure of his previous exertions.  The march to Apollonia had only been intended to place his wounded in safety and to pay his soldiers there, where his depots were stationed; as soon as this was done, he set out for Thessaly, leaving behind garrisons in Apollonia, Oricum, and Lissus.  The corps of Calvinus had also put itself in motion towards Thessaly; and Caesar could effect a junction with the reinforcements coming up from Italy, this time by the land-route through Illyria—­two legions under Quintus Cornificius—­still more easily in Thessaly than in Epirus.  Ascending by difficult paths in the valley of the Aous and crossing the mountain-chain which separates Epirus from Thessaly, he arrived at the Peneius; Calvinus was likewise directed thither, and the junction of the two armies was thus accomplished by the shortest route and that which was least exposed to the enemy.  It took place at Aeginium not far from the source of the Peneius.  The first Thessalian town before which the now united army appeared, Gomphi, closed its gates against it; it was quickly stormed and given up to pillage, and the other towns of Thessaly terrified by this example submitted, so soon as Caesar’s legions merely appeared before the walls.  Amidst these marches and conflicts, and with the help of the supplies—­ albeit not too ample—­which the region on the Peneius afforded, the traces and recollections of the calamitous days through which they had passed gradually vanished.

The victories of Dyrrhachium had thus borne not much immediate fruit for the victors.  Pompeius with his unwieldy army and his numerous cavalry had not been able to follow his versatile enemy into the mountains; Caesar like Calvinus had escaped from pursuit, and the two stood united and in full security in Thessaly.  Perhaps it would have been the best course, if Pompeius had now without delay embarked with his main force for Italy, where success was scarcely doubtful.  But in the meantime only a division of the fleet departed for Sicily and Italy.  In the camp of the coalition the contest with Caesar was looked on as so completely decided by the battles of Dyrrhachium that it only remained to reap the fruits of victory, in other words, to seek out and capture the defeated army.  Their former over-cautious reserve was succeeded by an arrogance still less justified by the circumstances; they gave no heed to the facts, that they had, strictly speaking, failed in the pursuit, that they had to hold themselves in readiness to encounter a completely refreshed and reorganized army in Thessaly, and that there was no small risk in moving away from the sea, renouncing the support of the fleet, and following their antagonist to the battlefield chosen by himself.  They were simply resolved at any price to fight with Caesar, and therefore to get at him as soon as possible and by the most convenient way.  Cato took up the command in Dyrrhachium, where a garrison was left behind of eighteen cohorts, and in Corcyra, where 300 ships of war were left; Pompeius and Scipio proceeded—­the former, apparently, following the Egnatian way as far as Pella and then striking into the great road to the south, the latter from the Haliacmon through the passes of Olympus—­to the lower Peneius and met at Larisa.