actually far inferior in numbers, he halted.  In order that this action should not seem due to fear, and he not be thought to be opening the war, he submitted some conciliatory proposals to the opposing body and continued his abode in that place.  Pompey, knowing this, wished to try conclusions with him as soon as possible and for this reason undertook to cross the river.  But the bridge on receiving the weight broke down and some of the advance guard being isolated, perished.  Then he desisted in dejection that he had failed in his first recourse to hostile action.  Meanwhile Antony had arrived, and Pompey in fear retired to Dyrrachium. [-48-] While Bibulus lived, Caesar’s lieutenant had not dared even to set out from Brundusium, so close was the guard kept over it.  But when that officer, worn out by hard work, had died and Libo succeeded him as admiral, Antony despised him and set sail with the evident intention of forcing the passage.  Driven back to land he repelled the other’s vigorous attack upon him and later, when Libo was anxious to disembark somewhere, he allowed him to find anchorage nowhere near that part of the mainland.  The admiral being in need of anchorage and water, since the little island in front of the harbor, which was the only place he could approach, is destitute of water and harbor alike, sailed off to some distant point where he was likely to find both in abundance.  In this way Antony was enabled to set sail, and later when the foe attempted to assail them on the high seas he suffered no damage at his hands:  a violent storm came up which prevented the attack, but caused injuries to both sides.

[-49-] When the soldiers had come safely across, Pompey, as I have said, retired to Dyrrachium, and Caesar followed him, encouraged by the fact that he had survived his previous experiences with the number of followers he now had.  Dyrrachium is situated in the land formerly belonging to the tribe of Illyrians called Parthini, but now and even at that time regarded as a part of Macedonia; and it is very favorably placed, whether it be the Epidamnus of the Corcyraeans or some other.  Those who record this fact also refer its founding and its name to a hero Dyrrachus.  The other authorities have declared that the place was renamed by the Romans with reference to the difficulties of the rocky shore, because the term Epidamnus has in the Latin tongue the meaning “loss,” and so seemed to be very ill-omened for their crossing over to it.

[-50-] Pompey after taking refuge in this Dyrrachium built a camp outside the city and surrounded it with deep ditches and stout palisades.  Caesar encamped over against it and made assaults, in the hope of shortly capturing the palisades by the number of his soldiers:  when, however, he was repulsed, he attempted to wall it off.  While he was at that work, Pompey fortified some points by stakes, cut off others by a wall, and fortified still others with a ditch, establishing towers and guards on the high