The first time that he went out of Rome with any public command, he arrived in eight days at the river Rhone, having with him in his coach a secretary or two before him who were continually writing, and him who carried his sword behind him.  And certainly, though a man did nothing but go on, he could hardly attain that promptitude with which, having been everywhere victorious in Gaul, he left it, and, following Pompey to Brundusium, in eighteen days’ time he subdued all Italy; returned from Brundusium to Rome; from Rome went into the very heart of Spain, where he surmounted extreme difficulties in the war against Afranius and Petreius, and in the long siege of Marseilles; thence he returned into Macedonia, beat the Roman army at Pharsalia, passed thence in pursuit of Pompey into Egypt, which he also subdued; from Egypt he went into Syria and the territories of Pontus, where he fought Pharnaces; thence into Africa, where he defeated Scipio and Juba; again returned through Italy, where he defeated Pompey’s sons: 

“Ocyor et coeli fiammis, et tigride foeta.”

["Swifter than lightning, or the cub-bearing tigress.” 
—­Lucan, v. 405]

              “Ac veluti montis saxum de, vertice praeceps
               Cum ruit avulsum vento, seu turbidus imber
               Proluit, aut annis solvit sublapsa vetustas,
               Fertur in abruptum magno mons improbus actu,
               Exultatque solo, silvas, armenta, virosque,
               Involvens secum.”

["And as a stone torn from the mountain’s top by the wind or rain torrents, or loosened by age, falls massive with mighty force, bounds here and there, in its course sweeps from the earth with it woods, herds, and men.”—­AEneid, xii. 684.]

Speaking of the siege of Avaricum, he says, that it, was his custom to be night and day with the pioneers.—­[Engineers.  D.W.]—­In all enterprises of consequence he always reconnoitred in person, and never brought his army into quarters till he had first viewed the place, and, if we may believe Suetonius, when he resolved to pass over into England, he was the first man that sounded the passage.

He was wont to say that he more valued a victory obtained by counsel than by force, and in the war against Petreius and Afranius, fortune presenting him with an occasion of manifest advantage, he declined it, saying, that he hoped, with a little more time, but less hazard, to overthrow his enemies.  He there also played a notable part in commanding his whole army to pass the river by swimming, without any manner of necessity: 

                    “Rapuitque ruens in praelia miles,
          Quod fugiens timuisset, iter; mox uda receptis
          Membra fovent armis, gelidosque a gurgite, cursu
          Restituunt artus.”