[-45-]During this delay, therefore, he acquired Oricum and Apollonia and other points there which had been abandoned by Pompey’s garrisons.  This “Corinthian Apollonia” is well situated as regards the land and as regards the sea, and excellently in respect to rivers.  What I have remarked, however, above all else is that a huge fire issues from the ground near the Aoeus river and neither spreads to any extent over the surrounding land nor sets on fire that very place where it is located nor even makes the ground dry and brittle, but leaves the grass and trees flourishing very near it.  In pouring rains it increases and rises high.  For this reason it is called Nymphaeum[71] and affords a kind of oracle.  You take a grain of incense and after making whatever prayer you wish throw it carrying the prayer.  At this the fire, if your wish is to be fulfilled, receives it very readily and in case the grain falls somewhere outside, darts forward, snatches it up and consumes it.  But if the wish is not to be fulfilled, the fire does not go to it, and if it is carried into the flame, the latter recedes and flees before it.  These two actions it performs in this way in all matters save those of death and marriage:  about these two it is not granted any one to learn anything whatever from it.

[-46-] Such is the nature of this marvel.  Now as Antony, to whom had been assigned the duty of conveying those that remained at Brundusium, proved slow, and no message came about them on account of the winter and of Bibulus, Caesar suspected that they had adopted a neutral attitude and were watching the course of events, as often happens in political disputes.  Wishing therefore, to sail himself to Italy, and alone, he embarked on a small boat as some one else, saying that he had been sent by Caesar; and he forced the captain, although there was a wind, to set sail.  When, however, they were away from land, the gale came sweeping violently down upon them and the billows rocked them terribly, so that the captain not even under compulsion dared any longer sail on, but undertook to return even without his passenger’s consent.  Then the latter revealed himself, as if by this act he should stop the storm, and said, “Be of good cheer:  you carry Caesar.”  Such a disposition and such a hope he had, either accidentally or as the result of some oracle, that he felt a secure trust in safety even contrary to the appearance of things.  Nevertheless, he did not get across, but after struggling for a long time in vain sailed back.

[-47-]After this he encamped opposite Pompey, near Apsus.  The latter as soon as he had heard of his rival’s advent had made no delay, but hoping to quell him easily before he secured the presence of the rest who were with Antony, he marched in haste and in some force toward Apollonia.  Caesar advanced to meet him as far as the river, thinking that even as he was he would prove a match for the troops then approaching:  but when he learned that he was