XXXVII.  On his return to Rome, Piso, the father-in-law of Caesar, advised that they should send commissioners to Pompeius to treat of terms, but Isauricus opposed the measure to please Caesar.  Being chosen Dictator by the Senate, he restored the exiles, and the children of those who had suffered in the times of Sulla,[531] he reinstated in their civil rights, and he relieved the debtors by a certain abatement of the interest, and took in hand other measures of the like kind, not many in number; but in eleven days, he abdicated the monarchy, and declaring himself and Servilius Isauricus consuls[532] set out on his expedition.  The rest of his forces he passed by on his hurried march, and with six hundred picked horsemen and five legions, the time being the winter solstice and the commencement of January (and this pretty nearly corresponds to the Poseideon of the Athenians), he put to sea, and crossing the Ionian gulf he took Oricum and Apollonia; but he sent back his ships to Brundisium for the soldiers whom he had left behind on his march.  But while the men were still on the road, as they were already passed the vigour of their age and worn out by the number of their campaigns, they murmured against Caesar, “Whither now will he lead us and where will this man at last carry us to, hurrying us about and treating us as if we could never be worn out and as if we were inanimate things? even the sword is at last exhausted by blows, and shield and breastplate need to be spared a little after so long use.  Even our wounds do not make Caesar consider that he commands perishable bodies, and that we are but mortal towards endurance and pain; and the winter season and the storms of the sea even a god cannot command; but this man runs all risks, as if he were not pursuing his enemies, but flying from them.”  With such words as these they marched slowly towards Brundisium.  But when they found that Caesar had embarked, then quickly changing their temper, they reproached themselves as traitors to their Imperator; and they abused their officers also for not hastening the march.  Sitting on the heights, they looked towards the sea and towards Epirus for the ships which were to carry them over to their commander.

XXXVIII.  At Apollonia, as Caesar had not a force sufficient to oppose the enemy, and the delay of the troops from Italy put him in perplexity and much uneasiness, he formed a desperate design, without communicating it to any one, to embark in a twelve-oared boat and go over to Brundisium, though the sea was commanded by so many ships of the enemy.[533] Accordingly, disguising himself in a slave’s dress, he went on board by night, and throwing himself down as a person of no importance, he lay quiet.  While the river Anius[534] was carrying down the boat towards the sea, the morning breeze, which at that time generally made the water smooth at the outlet of the river by driving the waves before it, was beaten down by a strong wind which blew all night over the sea; and