one occasion in an arrogant address to the Senate, told them not to be concerned or trouble themselves about preparations for war; when Caesar advanced, he would stamp upon the earth with his foot and fill Italy with armies.  However, even then Pompeius had the advantage over Caesar in amount of forces:  but nobody would let the man follow his own judgment:  and giving way to the many false reports and alarms, that the war was now close at hand and the enemy in possession of everything, and carried away by the general movement, he declared by an edict that he saw there was tumult, and he left the city after giving his commands to the Senate to follow, and that no one should stay who preferred his country and freedom to tyranny.

XXXIV.[522] Accordingly the consuls fled without even making the sacrifices which it was usual to make before quitting the city; and most of the senators also took to flight, in a manner as if they were robbing, each snatching of his own what first came to hand as if it belonged to another.  There were some also who, though they had hitherto vehemently supported the party of Caesar, through alarm at that time lost their presence of mind, and without any necessity for it were carried along with the current of that great movement.  A most piteous sight was the city, when so great a storm was coming on, left like a ship whose helmsman had given her up, to be carried along and dashed against anything that lay in her way.  But though this desertion of the city was so piteous a thing, men for the sake of Pompeius considered the flight to be their country, and they were quitting Rome as if it were the camp of Caesar; for even Labienus,[523] one of Caesar’s greatest friends, who had been his legatus and had fought with him most gallantly in all the Gallic wars, then fled away from Caesar and came to Pompeius.  But Caesar sent to Labienus both his property and his baggage; and advancing he pitched his camp close by Domitius, who with thirty cohorts held Corfinium.[524] Domitius despairing of himself asked his physician, who was a slave, for poison, and taking what was given, he drank it, intending to die.  Shortly after, hearing that Caesar showed wonderful clemency towards his prisoners, he bewailed his fate and blamed the rashness of his resolution.  But on the physician assuring him that what he had taken was only a sleeping potion and not deadly, he sprung up overjoyed, and going to Caesar, received his right hand, and yet he afterwards went over again to Pompeius.  This intelligence being carried to Rome made people more tranquil, and some who had fled, returned.