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These men, indeed, having previously barricaded themselves well, repelled the danger; but there was a certain Cinna, a poet, who had no share in the crime, but was actually a friend of Caesar’s. This man dreamed that he was invited to supper by Caesar and declined to go, but that Caesar besought and constrained him, and finally took him by the hand and led him into a yawning and darksome place, whither he followed unwilling and bewildered.

When this speech was reported to Caesar, he hid himself for some time, wandering about in the country of the Sabines. Then, as he was changing his abode by night on account of sickness, he fell in with soldiers of Sulla who were searching those regions and arresting the men in hiding there. Caesar gave their leader, Cornelius, two talents to set him free, and at once went down to the sea and sailed to King Nicomedes in Bithynia.

When, namely, some cried out against Caesar for this procedure, the people answered them with loud shouts, received Caesar with applause, and admired him for bringing back after so long a time, as it were from Hades, the honours of Marius into the city. Now, in the case of elderly women, it was ancient Roman usage to pronounce funeral orations over them; but it was not customary in the case of young women, and Caesar was the first to do so when his own wife died. This also brought him much favour, and worked upon the sympathies of the multitude, so that they were fond of him, as a man who was gentle and full of feeling.

This opinion seemed so humane, and the speech in support of it was made with such power, that not only those who rose to speak after Caesar sided with him, but many also of those who had preceded him took back the opinions which they had expressed and went over to his, until the question came round to Cato and Catulus. These warmly opposed Caesar’s proposal, and Cato even helped to raise suspicion against Caesar by what he said. As a result, the men were handed over to the executioner,

Caesar divorced Pompeia at once, but when he was summoned to testify at the trial, he said he knew nothing about the matters with which Clodius was charged. His statement appeared strange, and the prosecutor therefore asked, “Why, then, didst thou divorce thy wife?” “Because,” said Caesar, “I thought my wife ought not even to be under suspicion.” ¶ Some say that Caesar made this deposition honestly; but according to others it was made to gratify the people, who were determined to rescue Clodius.

Immediately after his praetorship Caesar received Spain as his province, and since he found it hard to arrange matters with his creditors, who obstructed his departure and were clamorous, he had recourse to Crassus, the richest of the Romans, who had need of Caesar’s vigour and fire for his political campaign against Pompey. And it was only after Crassus had met the demands of the most importunate and inexorable of these creditors and given surety for eight hundred and thirty talents, that Caesar could go out to his province.

As for Caesar’s colleague, Bibulus, since he availed nothing by obstructing Caesar’s laws, but often ran the risk with Cato of being killed in the forum, he shut himself up at home for the remainder of his term of office. Pompey, however, immediately after his marriage, filled the forum with armed men and helped the people to enact Caesar’s laws and give him as his consular province Gaul on both sides of the Alps for five years, together with Illyricum and four legions.

Of the other senators, only a very few used to go with Caesar to the senate; the rest, in displeasure, stayed away. Considius, a very aged senator, once told Caesar that his colleagues did not come together because they were afraid of the armed soldiers. “Why, then,” said Caesar, “dost thou too not stay at home out of the same fear?” To this Considius replied: “Because my old age makes me fearless; for the short span of life that is still left me does not require much anxious thought.”

Upon this the tenth legion sent a deputation to him, expressing their gratitude, while the other legions reviled their own commanders, and all the army, now full of impetuous eagerness, followed Caesar on a march of many days, and at last encamped within two hundred furlongs of the enemy. ¶ Now, the very approach of Caesar somewhat shattered the purpose of Ariovistus. For he did not expect that the Romans would attack the Germans, whose onset he thought they could not withstand, and he was amazed at the boldness of Caesar; besides, he saw that his own army was disturbed.

The Roman senate, on learning of these successes, decreed sacrifices to the gods and cessation from business, with festival, for fifteen days, a greater number than for any victory before. For the danger was seen to have been great when so many nations at once had broken out in revolt, and because Caesar was the victor, the good will of the multitude towards him made his victory more splendid. Caesar himself, after settling matters in Gaul, again spent the winter in the regions along the Po, carrying out his plans at Rome.

Caesar’s forces were now so large that he was forced to distribute them in many winter-quarters, while he himself, as his custom was, turned his steps towards Italy. Then all Gaul once more broke out in revolt, and great armies went about attacking the entrenchments and trying to destroy the winter-quarters of the Romans. The most numerous and powerful of the rebels, under Abriorix, utterly destroyed Titurius and Cotta, together with their army,

Those who held Alesia, too, after giving themselves and Caesar no small trouble, finally surrendered. And the leader of the whole war, Vergentorix, after putting on his most beautiful armour and decorating his horse, rode out through the gate. He made a circuit round Caesar, who remained seated, and then leaped down from his horse, stripped off his suit of armour, and seating himself at Caesar’s feet remained motionless, until he was delivered up to be kept in custody for the triumph.

For instance, the inhabitants of Novum Comum, a colony recently established by Caesar in Gaul, were deprived of citizenship by them; and Marcellus, while he was consul, beat with rods a senator of Novum Comum who had come to Rome, telling him besides that he put these marks upon him to prove that he was not a Roman, and bade him go back and show them to Caesar. But after the consulship of Marcellus, Caesar having now sent his Gallic wealth for all those in public life to draw from in copious streams, and having freed Curio the tribune from many debts,

But the officers who brought these men to Pompey spread abroad among the multitude stories regarding Caesar which were neither reasonable nor true, and ruined Pompey himself with vain hopes. They told him that Caesar’s army yearned for him, and that while he was with difficulty controlling affairs in the city owing to the disease of envy which festered in the body politic, the forces in Gaul were ready to serve him, and had but to cross into Italy when they would at once be on his side; so obnoxious to them had Caesar become by reason of the multitude of his campaigns, and so suspicious of him were they made by their fear of a monarchy.

When Curio laid these proposals before the people in behalf of Caesar, he was loudly applauded, and some actually cast garlands of flowers upon him as if he were a victorious athlete. Antony, too, who was a tribune, brought before the people a letter of Caesar’s on these matters which he had received, and read it aloud, in defiance of the consuls. But in the senate, Scipio, the father-in-law of Pompey, introduced a motion that if by a fixed day Caesar did not lay down his arms he should be declared a public enemy.