[Sidenote:  Caesar’s conduct at Rome.]

Caesar had no ships in which to follow.  He returned to Rome.  He met, of course, with no opposition.  He re-established the government there, organized the Senate anew, and obtained supplies of corn from the public granaries, and of money from the city treasury in the Capitol.  In going to the Capitoline Hill after this treasure, he found the officer who had charge of the money stationed there to defend it.  He told Caesar that it was contrary to law for him to enter.  Caesar said that, for men with swords in their hands, there was no law.  The officer still refused to admit him.  Caesar then told him to open the doors, or he would kill him on the spot.  “And you must understand,” he added, “that it will be easier for me to do it than it has been to say it.”  The officer resisted no longer, and Caesar went in.

[Sidenote:  Caesar subdues various countries.] [Sidenote:  He turns his thoughts to Pompey.]

After this, Caesar spent some time in rigorous campaigns in Italy, Spain, Sicily, and Gaul, wherever there was manifested any opposition to his sway.  When this work was accomplished, and all these countries were completely subjected to his dominion, he began to turn his thoughts to the plan of pursuing Pompey across the Adriatic Sea.

CHAPTER VII.

THE BATTLE OF PHARSALIA.

[Sidenote:  The gathering armies.] [Sidenote:  Pompey’s preparations.] [Sidenote:  Caesar at Brundusium.]

The gathering of the armies of Caesar and Pompey on the opposite shores of the Adriatic Sea was one of the grandest preparations for conflict that history has recorded, and the whole world gazed upon the spectacle at the time with an intense and eager interest, which was heightened by the awe and terror which the danger inspired.  During the year while Caesar had been completing his work of subduing and arranging all the western part of the empire, Pompey had been gathering from the eastern division every possible contribution to swell the military force under his command, and had been concentrating all these elements of power on the coasts of Macedon and Greece, opposite to Brundusium, where he knew that Caesar would attempt to cross the Adriatic Sea, His camps, his detachments, his troops of archers and slingers, and his squadrons of horse, filled the land, while every port was guarded, and the line of the coast was environed by batteries and castles on the rocks, and fleets of galleys on the water.  Caesar advanced with his immense army to Brundusium, on the opposite shore, in December, so that, in addition to the formidable resistance prepared for him by his enemy on the coast, he had to encounter the wild surges of the Adriatic, rolling perpetually in the dark and gloomy commotion always raised in such wide seas by wintery storms.

[Sidenote:  His address to his army.]