firmly by the defeated party or of even placing its force of troops at their disposal.  Somewhat more favourable prospects presented themselves to the vanquished in the west.  In Spain Pompeian sympathies were so strong among the population, that the Caesarians had on that account to give up the attack which they contemplated from this quarter against Africa, and an insurrection seemed inevitable, so soon as a leader of note should appear in the peninsula.  In Africa moreover the coalition, or rather Juba king of Numidia, who was the true regent there, had been arming unmolested since the autumn of 705.  While the whole east was consequently lost to the coalition by the battle of Pharsalus, it might on the other hand continue the war after an honourable manner probably in Spain, and certainly in Africa; for to claim the aid of the king of Numidia, who had for a long time been subject to the Roman community, against revolutionary fellow-burgesses was for Romans a painful humiliation doubtless, but by no means an act of treason.  Those again who in this conflict of despair had no further regard for right or honour, might declare themselves beyond the pale of the law, and commence hostilities as robbers; or might enter into alliance with independent neighbouring states, and introduce the public foe into the intestine strife; or, lastly, might profess monarchy with the lips and prosecute the restoration of the legitimate republic with the dagger of the assassin.

Hostilities of Robbers and Pirates

That the vanquished should withdraw and renounce the new monarchy, was at least the natural and so far the truest expression of their desperate position.  The mountains and above all the sea had been in those times ever since the memory of man the asylum not only of all crime, but also of intolerable misery and of oppressed right; it was natural for Pompeians and republicans to wage a defiant war against the monarchy of Caesar, which had ejected them, in the mountains and on the seas, and especially natural for them to take up piracy on a greater scale, with more compact organization, and with more definite aims.  Even after the recall of the squadrons that had come from the east they still possessed a very considerable fleet of their own, while Caesar was as yet virtually without vessels of war; and their connection with the Dalmatae who had risen in their own interest against Caesar,(38) and their control over the most important seas and seaports, presented the most advantageous prospects for a naval war, especially on a small scale.  As formerly Sulla’s hunting out of the democrats had ended in the Sertorian insurrection, which was a conflict first waged by pirates and then by robbers and ultimately became a very serious war, so possibly, if there was in the Catonian aristocracy or among the adherents of Pompeius as much spirit and fire as in the Marian democracy, and if there was found among them a true sea-king, a commonwealth independent of the monarchy of Caesar and perhaps a match for it might arise on the still unconquered sea.