[Sidenote:  Caesar arrives at Ravenna.] [Sidenote:  Pompey’s demands.]

He concluded that it would be his wisest policy not to a’tempt to intimidate Pompey by great and open preparations for war, which might tend to arouse him to vigorous measures of resistance, but rather to cover and conceal his designs, and thus throw his enemy off his guard.  He advanced, therefore, toward the Rubicon with a small force.  He established his headquarters at Ravenna, a city not far from the river, and employed himself in objects of local interest there, in order to avert as much as possible the minds of the people from imagining that he was contemplating any great design.  Pompey sent to him to demand the return of a certain legion which he had lent him from his own army at a time when they were friends.  Caesar complied with this demand without any hesitation, and sent the legion home.  He sent with this legion, also, some other troops which were properly his own, thus evincing a degree of indifference in respect to the amount of the force retained under his command which seemed wholly inconsistent with the idea that he contemplated any resistance to the authority of the government at Rome.

[Sidenote:  Caesar demands to be made consul.] [Sidenote:  Excitement in consequence.]

In the mean time, the struggle at Rome between the partisans of Caesar and Pompey grew more and more violent and alarming.  Caesar through his friends in the city, demanded to be elected consul.  The other side insisted that he must first, if that was his wish, resign the command of his army, come to Rome, and present himself as a candidate in the character of a private citizen.  This the constitution of the state very properly required.  In answer to this requisition, Caesar rejoined, that, if Pompey would lay down his military commands, he would do so too; if not, it was unjust to require it of him.  The services, he added, which he had performed for his country, demanded some recompense, which, moreover, they ought to be willing to award, even if, in order to do it, it were necessary to relax somewhat in his favor the strictness of ordinary rules.  To a large part of the people of the city these demands of Caesar appeared reasonable.  They were clamorous to have them allowed.  The partisans of Pompey, with the stern and inflexible Cato at their head, deemed them wholly inadmissible, and contended with the most determined violence against them.  The whole city was filled with the excitement of this struggle, into which all the active and turbulent spirits of the capital plunged with the most furious zeal, while the more considerate and thoughtful of the population, remembering the days of Marius and Sylla, trembled at the impending danger.  Pompey himself had no fear.  He urged the Senate to resist to the utmost all of Caesar’s claims, saying, if Caesar should be so presumptuous as to attempt to march to Rome, he could raise troops enough by stamping with his foot to put him down.